
Pass PA 40 10 

Book ,F 5 

By bequest of \ 
William Lukens Shoemaker 







ApiidL Petnnn BeBorrani, Christhiae J&egmae am l iqnariirm , 

(j>H7!'/t>fr//iy h. I frt tie ?i,J in/// <v_:/ iaw///(/ /y <"///!/ >s/.///., r /. 



FrOztal W7- BaM» 



ek fc ^y, TaternoaterRow, XovTib 



/M s?g?H 



THE REMAINS 

OF 

HESIOD THE ASCR^AN 

INCLUDING 

€fjc gfyidb of iperatfc& 

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYME AND BLANK-VERSE ; 

WITH 

A DISSERTATION 

ON THE 

LIFE AND JERA, THE POEMS AND MYTHOLOGY, 

OF 

HESIOD, 

AND COPIOUS NOTES. 

THE SECOND EDITION, 

REVISED AND ENLARGED 

'^' 

BY 

CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON, 

\UTHOR OB SPECIMENS OF THE CLASSIC POETS FROM HOMER TO TRYPHTODORCS. 



'O Trpzo-$v<; %a.Sap£v yzvcra.y.ivo; Tu/SaJajv. — AAf-CAIOi". 



LONDON: 



PltlNTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY 

47 1'ATERNOSTF.R.ROW. 

1815 






Gift. 

W. L. Shoemaker 

J S '06 



C. Baldwin, Printer, 
New Bruise-street. London. 



PREFACE. 



J. HE remains of Hesiod are not alone interesting to 
the antiquary, as tracing a picture of the rude arts 
and manners of the ancient Greeks. His sublime 
philosophic allegories ; his elevated views of a retri- 
butive Providence ; and the romantic elegance, or 
daring grandeur, with which he has invested the 
legends of his mythology, offer more solid reasons 
than the accident of coeval existence for the tradi- 
tional association of his name with that of Homer. 

Hesiod has been translated in Latin hexameters 
by Nicolaus Valla, and by Bernardo Zamagna. A 
French translation by Jacques le Gras bears date 
1586. The earliest essay on his poems by our own 
countrymen appears in the old racy version of " The 
Works and Days," by George Chapman, the trans- 
lator of Homer, published in 1618. It is so scarce that 
Warton in " The History of English Poetry " doubts 
a 2 



IV PREFACE. 

its existence. Some specimens of a work equally curi- 
ous from its rareness, and interesting as an example 
of our ancient poetry, are appended to this translation. 
Parnell has given a sprightly imitation of the Pan- 
dora, under the title of " Hesiod, or the Rise of 
Woman : " and Broome, the coadjutor of Pope in 
the Odyssey, has paraphrased the battle of the Titans 
and the Tartarus.* The translation by Thomas 
Cooke omits the splendid heroical fragment of " The 
Shield," which I have restored to its legitimate con- 
nexion. It was first published in 1 728 ; reprinted in 
1740; and has been inserted in the collections of 
Anderson and Chalmers. 

This translator obtained from his contemporaries the 
name of " Hesiod Cooke." He was thought a good 
Grecian ; and translated against Pope the episode of 
Thersites, in the Iliad, with some success; which 
procured him a place in the Dunciad : 

Be thine, my stationer, this magic gift, 
Cooke shall be Prior, and Concanen Swift : 

and a passage in " The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot " 

* A blank-verse translation of the Battle of the Titans may 
be found in Bryant's " Analysis : n and one of the descriptive 
part of "The Shield" in the "Exeter Essays." Isaac Ritson 
translated the Theogony ; but the work has remained in MS. 



PREFACE. V 

seems pointed more directly at the affront of the 
Thersites : 

From these the world shall judge of men and books, 
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cookes. 

Satire, however, is not evidence : and neither these 
distichs, nor the sour notes of Pope's obsequious 
commentator, are sufficient to prove, that Cooke, any 
more than Theobald and many others, deserved, 
either as an author or a man, to be ranked with 
dunces. A biographical account of him, with ex- 
tracts from his common-place books, was communi- 
cated by Sir Joseph Mawby to the Gentleman's Ma- 
gazine : vol. 61, 62. His edition of Andrew Mar- 
veil's works procured him the patronage of the Earl 
of Pembroke: he was also a writer in the Craftsman. 
Johnson has told (Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, 
p. 25.) that " Cooke lived twenty years on a trans- 
lation of Plautus: for which he was always taking 
subscriptions." The Amphitryon was, however, ac- 
tually published. 

With respect to Hesiod, either Cooke's knowlege 
of Greek was in reality superficial, or his indolence 
counteracted his abilities ; for his blunders are inex- 



VI PREFACE. 

cusably frequent and unaccountably gross : not in 
matters of mere verbal nicety, but in several impor- 
tant particulars : nor are these instances, which tend 
so perpetually to mislead the reader, compensated by 
the force or beauty of his style ; which, notwithstand- 
ing some few unaffected and emphatical lines, is, in 
its general effect, tame and grovelling. These errors 
I had thought it necessary to point out in the notes 
to my first edition; as a justification of my own at- 
tempt to supply what I considered as still a desider- 
atum in our literature. The criticisms are now re- 
scinded; as their object has been misconstrued into 
a design of raising myself by depreciating my pre- 
decessor. 

Some remarks of the different writers in the re- 
views appear to call for reply. 

The Edinburgh Reviewer objects, as an instance of 
defective translation, to my version of outias s* ccyuh : 
which he says is improperly rendered " shame : " 
whereas it rather means that diffidence and want of 
enterprise which unfits men from improving their 
fortune. In this sense it is opposed by Hesiod to 
Gape-OS, an active and courageous spirit." 



PREFACE. VU 

But the Edinburgh Reviewer is certainly mistaken. 
If uidus is to be taken in this limited sense, what can 
be the meaning of the line 

AtSto? v t' avtyas fjizya. civtrcu nS 1 ' eytvjjtf-j. 

Shame greatly hurts or greatly helps mankind ? 

the proper antithesis is the «*3o>c ayah, alluded to in a 
subsequent line, 

And shamelessness expels the better shame. 

The good shame, which deters men from mean 
actions, as the evil one depresses them from honest 
enterprise. 

In my dissertation I had ventured to call in ques- 
tion the judgment of commentators in exalting their 
favourite author : and had doubted whether the meek 
forgiving temper of Hesiod towards his brother, 
whom he seldom honours with any better title than 
" fool," was very happily chosen as a theme for ad- 
miration. On this the old Critical Reviewer ex- 
claimed " as if that, and various other gentle ex- 
pressions, for example blockhead, goose-cap, dunder- 
head, were not frequently terms of endearment : " and 
he added his suspicion that " like poor old Lear, I 



viii PREFACE. 

did not know the difference between a bitter fool and 
a sweet one." 

But, as the clown in Hamlet says, " 'twill away 
from me to you." The critic is bound to prove, 
1st, that vwne is ever used in this playful sense; 
which he has not attempted to do : 2dly, that it is 
so used with the aggravating prefix of MErA v»)7rj= : 
3dly, that it is so used by Hesiod. 

Hector's babe on the nurse's bosom is described as 
vri'Kios ; and Patroclus weeping is compared by Achilles 
to Koupr] wjtti)]. These words may bear the senses of 
" poor innocent; " and of " fond girl; " the former 
is tender, the latter playful ; but in both places the 
word is usually understood in its primitive sense of 
" infant." Homer says of Andromache preparing a 
bath for Hector, 

Hkttit) ! «£' jvo»j0-EV o fA.w y,a,\a. rnXs Xosrponv 

XEfXTty Aj£iAXwo? SttfActg-ev yXcLUHM-mq A6r>v» : II. xxii. 

Fond one ! she knew not that the blue-eyed maid 
Had quell'd him, far from the refreshing bath, 
Beneath Achilles' hand. 

But this is in commiseration: or would the critic 
apply to Andromache the epithet of goose-cap P After 



PREFACE. IX 

all, who in his senses would dream of singling out a 
word from an author's context, and delving in other 
authors for a meaning ? The question is, not how it 
is used by other authors, but how it is used by Hesiod. 
Till the Critic favours us with some proofs of Hesiod's 
namby-pamby tenderness towards the brother who 
had cheated him of his patrimony, I beg to return 
both the quotation and the appellatives upon his 
hands.* 

The London Reviewer censures my choice of blank- 
verse as a medium for the ancient hexameter, on the 
ground that the closing adonic is more fully repre- 
sented by the rounding rhyme of the couplet : but it 
may be urged, that the flowing pause and continuous 
period of the Homeric verse are more consonant 
with our blank measure. In confining the latter to 
dramatic poetry, as partaking of the character of the 



* The untimely death of the writer unfortunately precludes 
me from offering my particular acknowledgments to the translator 
of Aristotle's Poetics, for the large and liberal praise which he 
has bestowed upon my work in the second number of The London 
Review: a journal established on the plan of a more manly 
system of criticism by the respectable essayist, whose transla- 
tions from the Greek comedy first drew the public attention to 
the unjustly vilified Aristophanes. 



X PREFACE. 

Greek Iambics, he has overlooked the visible distinc- 
tion of structure in our dramatic and heroic blank 
verse. With respect to the particular poem, I am 
disposed to concede that the general details of the 
Theogony might be improved by rhyme : but the more 
interesting passages are not to be sacrificed to those 
which cannot interest, be they versified how they 
may : and as the critic seems to admit that a poem 
whose action passes 

" Beyond the flaming bounds of time and space " 
may be fitly clothed with blank numbers, by this 
admission he gives up the argument as it affects the 
Theogony. 

In disapproving of my illustration of Hesiod by 
the Bryantian scheme of mythology, the London 
Reviewer refers me for a refutation of this system to 
Professor Richardson's preface to his Arabic Dic- 
tionary ; where certain etymological combinations and 
derivations are contested, which Mr. Bryant produ- 
ces as authorities in support of the adoration of the 
Sun or of Fire. Mr. Richardson, however, pre- 
mises by acknowledging " the penetration and judge- 
ment of the author of the Analytic System in the re- 
futation of vulgar errors, with the new and inform- 



PREFACE. XI 

ing light in which he has placed a variety of ancient 
facts : "■ and however formidable the professor's cri- 
ticisms may be in this his peculiar province, it must 
be remarked that a great part of " The New System" 
rests on grounds independent of etymology ; and is 
supported by a mass of curious evidence collected 
from the history, the rites, and monuments of an- 
cient nations : nor can I look upon the judgment of 
that critic as infallible, who conceives the suspicious 
silence of the Persic historians sufficient to set aside 
the venerable testimony of Herodotus, and the proud 
memorials and patriotic traditions of the free people 
of Greece : and who resolves the invasion of Xerxes 
into the petty piratical inroad of a Persian Satrap. 
I conceive, also, with respect to the point in dispute, 
that the professor's confutation of certain etymolo- 
gical positions is completely weakened in its intended 
general effect, by his scepticism as to the universality 
of a diluvian tradition. If we admit that the peri- 
odical overflowings of the Nile might have given 
rise to superstitious observances and processions in 
iEgypt ; and even that the sudden inundations of the 
Euphrates and the Tigris might have caused the in- 
stitution of similar memorials in Babylonia, how are 



XII PREFACE. 

we to account for Greece, and India, and America, 
each visited by a destructive inundation, and each 
perpetuating its remembrance by poetical legends or 
emblematical sculptures ? Surely a most incredible 
supposition, Nor is this all ; for we find an agree- 
ment not merely of a flood, but of persons preserved 
from a flood ; and preserved in a remarkable manner ; 
by inclosure in a vessel, or the hollow trunk of a tree. 
How is it possible to solve coincidences of so minute 
and specific a nature * by casual inundations, with 



* " Paintings representing the deluge of Tezpi are found among 
the different nations that inhabit Mexico. He saved himself con- 
jointly with his wife, children, and several animals, on a raft. The 
painting represents him in the midst of the water lying in a bark. 
The mountain, the summit of which, crowned by a tree, rises 
above the waters, is the peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of the 
Mexicans. The men born after the deluge were dumb : a dove, 
from the top of the tree distributes among them tongues. When 
the great Spirit ordered the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out a 
vulture. This bird did not return on account of the number of 
carcases, with which the earth, newly dried up, was strewn. He 
sent out other birds ; one of which, the humming-bird,, alone re- 
turned, holding in its beak a branch covered with leaves. — Ought 
we not to acknowledge the traces of a common origin, wherever 
cosmogonical ideas, and the first traditions of nations, offer striking 
analogies,, even in the minutest circumstances? Does not the 
humming-bird of Tezpi remind us of Noah's dove ; that of Deu- 
calion, and the birds, which, according to Berosus, Xisuthrue- 



PREFACE. XIII 

Mr. Richardson, or, with Dr. Gillies, by the natural 
proneness of the human mind to the weaknesses and 
terrors of superstition ? 

As to my choice of the Analytic System for the 
purpose of illustrating Hesiod, I am not convinced 
by the argument either of the London or the Edin- 
burgh Reviewer, that it is a system too extensive to 
serve for the illustration of a single author, or that 
my task was necessarily confined to literal explanation 
of the received mythology. In this single author are 
concentrated the several heathen legends and heroical 
fables, and the whole of that popular theology which 
the author of the New System professed to analyse. 
Tzetzes, in his scholia upon Hesiod, interpreted the 
theogonic traditions by the phenomena of nature and 
the operations of the elements: Le Clerc by the 
hidden sense which he traced from Phoenician pri- 
mitives: and to these Cooke, in his notes, added 
the moral apologues of Lord Bacon. In depart- 

sent out from his ark, to see whether the waters were run off, and 
whether he might erect altars to the tutelary deities of Chaldcea ? " 
— Humboldt's Researches, concerning the Institutions and Mo- 
numents of ancient America : translated by Helen Maria Wil- 
liams 



XIV PREFACE. 

ing, therefore, from the beaten track of the school- 
boy's Pantheon, I have only exercised the same free- 
dom which other commentators and translators have 
assumed before me. 

Clifton, 
October, 1815. 



DISSERTATION 

ON 

THE LIFE AND JERX 

OF 

HESIOD, 

HIS POEMS, AND MYTHOLOGY. 



SECTION I. 

ON THE LIFE OF HESIOD. 

IT is remarked by Velleius Paterculus (Hist. lib. i.) 
that " Hesiod had avoided the negligence into which 
Homer fell, by attesting both his country and his 
parents : but that of his country he had made most 
reproachful mention ; on account of the fine which 
she had imposed on him." There are sufficient co- 
incidences in the poems of Hesiod, now extant, to 
explain the grounds of this assertion of Paterculus ; 
but the statement is loose and incorrect. 

As to the mention of his country, if by country 
we are to suppose the place of his birth, it can only 
be understood by implication, and that not with cer- 
tainty. Hesiod indeed relates that his father migrated 
from Cuma in iEolia, to Ascra, a Boeotian village at 
the foot of mount Helicon ; but we are left to con- 
jecture whether he himself was born at Cuma or at 



XVI DISSERTATION ON 

Ascra. His affirmation that he had never embarked 
in a ship but once, when he sailed across the Euripus 
to the Isle of Eubcea on occasion of a poetical con- 
test, has been thought decisive of his having been 
born at Ascra; but the poet is speaking of his nau- 
tical experience : and even if he had originally come 
from Cuma, he would scarcely mention a voyage 
made in infancy. The observation respecting his 
parents tends to countenance the reading of A<ot/ ysvog . 
race of Dius; instead of foov ysvog, race divine; but 
the name of one parent only is found. The re- 
proachful mention of his country plainly alludes to 
his charge of corruption against the petty kings or 
nobles, who exercised the magistracy of Bceotia : and 
by the fine is meant the judicial award of the larger 
share of the patrimony to his brother. 

There seems a great probability that Virgil, in his 
fourth eclogue, had Hesiod's golden and heroic ages 
in view ; and that he alludes to the passage of Justice 
leaving the earth, where he says 

The virgin i;ow returns : Saturaian times 
Roll round again : 

and to Hesiod himself in the verse, 

The last age dawns, in verse Cumaean sung : * 

* It has been a favourite theory of* learned men, that Virgil had 
access to Sibylline prophecies, which foretold the birth of a 
Saviour. How came the Sibyls, any more than the Pythonesses 
of Delphos, to be ranked on a sudden with the really inspired 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XVII 

and not, as is commonly thought, to the Sibyl of Cam- 
panian Cuma. Professor Heyne objects, that Hesiod 
makes no mention of the revolution of a better age : 
yet such an allusion is significantly conveyed in the 
following passage : 

Oh would that Nature had denied me birth 
Midst this fifth race, this iron age of earth ; 
That long before within the grave I lay, 
Or long hereafter could behold the day ! 

That Virgil elsewhere calls Hesiod's verse Ascraean is 
no argument against his supposing him of Cuma: 
there seems no reason why either epithet should not 
be used: for the poet was at least of Cumean ex- 
traction. That Ascraeus was Hesiod's received sur- 
name among the ancients proves nothing as to his 
birth-place, nor is any thing proved as to Virgil's 
opinion by his adoption of the title in compliance 
with common usage. Apollonius was surnamed 

prophets ? or is it credible that they should have had either the 
curiosity, or the power, to inspect the Jewish Scriptures ? The 
" Sibylline Verses " were confessedly interpolated, if not fabri- 
cated, by the pious fraud of Monks. The imitations from Isaiah 
seem no less chimerical. Every description of a golden age 
among the poets may be wrested into a similar parallel. Nor 
is it to be conceived that Virgil would have produced so dry a 
copy of so luxuriant an original. This argument does not affect 
the extraordinary coincidence of the time of the appearance of 
this eclogue, with the epoch of the Messiah's birth; which is 
exceedingly curious. 

b 



XVlii DISSERTATION ON 

Rhodius from his residence at Rhodes, yet his birth- 
place was iEgypt. After all, nothing is established, 
even if it could be certified that Virgil thought him 
of Cuma, beyond the single weight of Virgil's indi- 
vidual opinion. Plutarch relates, from a more an- 
cient and therefore a more competent authority, that 
of Ephorus, the Cumaean historian, that Dius was 
the youngest of three brothers, and emigrated through 
distress of debt to Ascra ; where he married Pyci- 
mede, the mother of Hesiod. 

If we allow the authenticity of the proem to the 
Theogony, Hesiod tended sheep in the vallies of 
Helicon ; for it is not in the spirit of ancient poetry 
to feign this sort of circumstance ; and no education 
could be conceived more natural for a bard who sang 
of husbandry. From the fiction of the Muses pre- 
senting him with a laurel-bough, we may infer also 
that he was not a minstrel or harper, but a rhapso- 
dist ; and sang or recited to the branch instead of the 
lyre. La Harpe, in his Lycee, ou Cows de Literature, 
asserts that Hesiod was a priest of the temple of the 
Muses. I find the same account in Gale's Court of 
the Gentiles ; book iii. p. 7. vol. i. who quotes Ca- 
rion's Chronicle of Memorable Events. For this, 
however, I can find no ancient authority. On re- 
ferring to Pausanias, he mentions, indeed, that the 
statue of Hesiod was placed in the temple of the 
Muses on Mount Helicon : and in the Works and 
Days Hesiod mentions having dedicated to the Muses 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XIX 

of Helicon the tripod which he won in the Eubcean 
contest ; and observes 

Th' inspiring Muses to my lips have giv'n 

The love of song, and strains that breathe of heaven. 

From the conjunction of this passage with the ac- 
count of Pausanias, has probably arisen a confused 
supposition that Hesiod was actually a priest of the 
Heliconian temple. The circumstance, although des- 
titute of express evidence, is however probable, from 
his acquaintance with theogonical traditions and his 
tone of religious instruction. 

Guietus rejects the whole passage as supposititious, 
which respects the voyage to Eubcea, and the contest 
in poetry at the funeral games of Amphidamas. 
Proclus supposes Plutarch to have also rejected it : 
because he speaks of the contest as ra scoKoc wpay/*aTa : 
which some interpret trite or threadbare tales : others 
old wives' stories. But if the latter sense be the cor- 
rect one, Plutarch may have meant to intimate his 
disbelief only of Hesiod and Homer having con- 
tended ; not altogether of a contest in which Hesiod 
took part. In fact it seems reasonable to infer the au- 
thenticity of the passage from this very tradition 
of Homer and Hesiod having disputed a prize in 
poetry. 

In the pseudo-history entitled " The Contest of 

Homer and Hesiod," is an inscription purporting to 

be that on the tripod which Hesiod won from Homer 

in Eubcea: 

b 2 



■ ■!■■ 



XX DISSERTATION ON 

This Hesiod vow'd to Helicon's blest nine, 

Victor in Chalcis crown'd o'er Homer, bard divine. 

Now that the passage in " The Works" was ex- 
tant long before this piece was in existence, is sus- 
ceptible of easy proof: but if we conceive with the 
credulity of Barnes, that the piece is a collection of 
scattered traditionary matter of genuine antiquity, 
that the passage was not constructed on the narration 
may be inferred from the former wanting the name 
of Homer. The nullity of purpose in such a forgery 
seems to have struck those, who in the indulgence of 
the same fanciful whim have substituted, as Proclus 
states, for the usual reading in the text of Hesiod, 

V(*va) viKnvarra, <b£f£» TptTTsS' airxtVTa, 

I bore a tripod ear'd, my prize, away : 

T[X\w viXTio-avr' EV ■^aKai^i Qncv O/otnpov, 

Victor in Chalcis crown'd o'er Homer, bard divine : 

the identical verse in the pretended inscription. It 
is incredible that any person should take the trouble 
of foisting lines into Hesiod's poem, for the barren 
object of inducing a belief that he had won a poetical 
prize from some unknown and nameless bard : un- 
less we were to presume that the forger omitted the 
name through a refinement of artifice, that no sus- 
picion may be excited by its too minute coincidence 
with the traditionary story : but it is a perfectly na- 
tural circumstance that the passage in Hesiod, de- 
scribing a contest with some unknown bard, should 
have furnished the basis of a meeting between Hesiod 






THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XXI 

and Homer : and the tradition is at once explained 
by the coincidence of this passage in " The Works," 
and an invocation in the " Hymn to Venus;" where 
Homer exclaims on the eve of one of these bardic 
festivals, 

Oh in this contest let me bear away 

The palm of song : do thou prepare my lay ! 

The piece entitled " The Contest of Homer and 
Hesiod," is entitled to no authority. It is not credi- 
ble that a composition of this nature, consisting of 
enigmas with their solutions, and of lines of imper- 
fect sense which are completed by the alternate verses 
of the answerer, should have been preserved by the 
oral tradition of ages like complete poems : and the 
foolish genealogies, whereby Homer and Hesiod are 
traced to Gods, Muses, and Rivers, and are made 
cousins, according to the favourite zeal of the Greeks 
for finding out a consanguinity in poets, diminish all 
the credit of the writer as a sober historian. 

It appears probable that the whole piece was sug- 
gested by the hint of the contest in Plutarch : who 
quotes it in his " Banquet of Sages," as an example 
of the ancient contests in poetry. He says Homer 
proposed this enigma : 

Rehearse, O Muse ! the things that ne'er have been, 
Nor e'er shall in the future time be seen : 

which Hesiod answeredinamannerno less enigmatical: 

When round Jove's tomb the clashing cars shall roll, 
The trampling coursers straining for the goal. 



XX11 DISSERTATION ON 

The same verses, with a few changes, are given in 
" The Contest ; " only the question is assigned to 
Hesiod, and the answer to Homer ; as Robinson con- 
lectures, with perhaps too much refinement, for the 
secret purpose of depressing Hesiod under the mask 
of exalting him, by appointing Homer to the more 
arduous task of solving the questions proposed. 
With respect also to the award of Pan cedes, the 
judge, which is thought to betray the same design 
by an imbecile or partial preference of the verses of 
Hesiod to those of Homer, the reason stated by 
Pancedes, that " it was just to bestow the prize on 
him who exhorted men to agriculture and peace, in 
preference to him who described only war and car- 
nage " is equally noble and philosophical ; and by no 
means merits to have given rise to the proverbial 
parody quoted by Barnes : Uuv&os 4^°? " the judg- 
ment of Pan : " instead of Tlavoifo ^$0?, " the judg- 
ment of Pancedes." 

The piece seems to be a mere exercise of ingenuity, 
without any particular design of raising one poet at 
the expence of the other: and as it contains in- 
ternal evidence of having been composed after the 
time of Adrian, who is mentioned by name as " that 
most divine Emperor," and Plutarch flourished under 
Trajan, there is reason to suppose that the narrative 
of Periander in the " Banquet of Wise Men," 
afforded the first hint of the whole contest. 

To the same zeal for making Hesiod and Homer 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XX111 

competitors we owe another inscription, quoted by 
Eustathius, ad II. A. p. Si 

In Delos first did I with Homer raise 
The rhapsody of bards ; and new the lays : 
Phoebus Apollo did our numbers sing ; 
Latona's son, the golden-sworded king. 

But if the passage in ** The Works " be au- 
thentic, the spuriousness of this inscriptive record 
detects itself; as Hesiod there confines his voyages 
to the crossing the Euripus. 

Pausanias mentions the institution of a contest at 
the temple in Delphos, where a hymn was to be sung 
in honour of Apollo : and says that Hesiod was ex- 
cluded from the number of the candidates because he 
had not learnt to sing to the harp. He adds, that 
Homer came thither also; and was incapacitated 
from trying his skill by the same deficiency: and, 
what is very strange, he gives as a reason why he 
could not have taken a part in the contest, even were 
he a harper, that he was blind. 

From Plutarch, Pausanias, and the author of 
" The Contest," we are enabled to cull some gossip- 
ing traditions of the latter life of Hesiod, which are 
scarcely worth the gleaning, except that, like the ro- 
mancing Lives of Homer, they are proofs of the 
poet's celebrity. 

Hesiod, we are told, set out on a pilgrimage to the 
Delphic Oracle, for the purpose of hearing his 



XXIV DISSERTATION ON 

fortune : and the old bard could scarcely get in at 
the gates of the temple, when the prophetess could 
refrain no longer : " ajflata est numirie quando jam 
propriore Dei : " 

Blest is the man who treads this hallow'd ground, 
With honours by th' immortal Muses crown'd : 
The bard whose glory beams divinely bright 
Far as the morning sheds her ambient light : 
But shun the shades of fam'd Nemean Jove ; 
Thy mortal end awaits thee in the grove. 

But after all her sweet words, the priestess was 
but a jilting gypsey ; and meant only to shuffle with 
the ambiguity of her trade. The oM gentleman 
carefully turning aside from the Peloponnesian 
Nemea, fell into the trap of a temple of the Nemean 
Jupiter at iEnoe, a town of Locris. He was here 
entertained by one Ganyctor ; together with a Mile- 
sian, his fellow-traveller, and a youth called Troilus. 
During the night this Milesian violated the daughter 
of their host, by name Ctemene : and the grey hairs 
of Hesiod, who we are told was an old man twice 
over,* and whose name grew into a proverb for lon- 
gevity, could not save him from being suspected of 
the deed by the young lady's brothers, Ctemenus and 
Antiphus: they without much ceremony murdered 

* See the epigram ; which, for want of an owner, is ascribed 
by Tzetzes to Pindar : 

Hail Hesiod ! wisest man ! who twice the bloom 

Of youth hast prov'd, and twice approach'd the tomb. 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XXV 

him in the fields, and " to leave no botches in the 
work," killed the poor boy into the bargain. The 
Milesian, we are to suppose, escaped under the 
cloud of his miraculous security, free from gashes 
and from question. The body of Hesiod was thrown 
into the sea; and a dolphin,* or a whole shoal 
of them, according to another account, conveyed 
it to a part of the coast, where the festival of 
Neptune was celebrating : and the murderers, having 
confessed, were drowned in the waves. Plutarch 
fde solertia animalium) states that the corpse of 
Hesiod was discovered through the sagacity of his 
dog. 

The body of a murdered poet, however, was not to 
rest quiet without effecting some further extraordi- 
nary prodigies. The inhabitants of Orchomenos, in 
Bceotia, having consulted the oracle on occasion of a 
pestilence, were answered that, as their only remedy, 
they must seek the bones of Hesiod ; and that a crow 
would direct them. The messengers accordingly 
found a crow sitting on a rock ; in the cavity of which 
they discovered the poet's remains ; transported them 
to their own country, and erected a tomb with this 
epitaph : 

* The Greeks were extremely fanciful about dolphins." Several 
stories of persons preserved from drowning by dolphins, and ro- 
mantic tales of their fondness for children, and their love of 
music, are related by Plutarch in his " Banquet of Diodes." 



XXVI DISSERTATION ON 

The fallow vales of Ascra gave him birth : 
His bones are cover'd by the Mingan earth: 
Supreme in Hellas Hesiod's glories rise, 
Whom men discern by wisdom's touchstone wise. 

Among the Greek Inscriptions is an epitaph on 
Hesiod with the name of Alcaeus, which has the air 
of being a genuine ancient production, from its 
breathing the beautiful classic simplicity of the old 
Grecian school : 

Nymphs in their founts midst Locris' woodland gloom 
Laved Hesiod's corse and piled his grassy tomb : 
The shepherds there the yellow honey shed, 
And milk of goats was sprinkled o'er his head : 
With voice so sweetly breathed that sage would sing, 
Who sip'd pure drops from every Muse's spring. 

Some mention Ctemene, or Clymene, on whose 
account Hesiod is said to have been murdered, as 
the name of his wife : others call her Archiepe ; and 
he is supposed to have had by her a son named 
Stesichorus. In " The Works" is this passage: 

Then may not I, nor yet my son remain 
In this our generation just in vain : 

which, unless it be only a figure of speech, confirms 
the fact of his having a son. 

Pausanias describes a brazen statue of Hesiod in 
the forum of the city Thespia, in Boeotia ; another 
in the temple of Jupiter Olympicus, at Olympia in 
Elis; and a third in the temple of the Muses, on 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XXV11 

Mount Helicon, in a sitting posture, with a harp 
resting on his knees ; a circumstance which he rather 
formally criticises, on the ground that Hesiod recited 
with the laurel-branch. 

A brazen statue of Hesiod stood also in the baths 
of Zeuxippus, which formed a part of old Byzantium, 
and retained the same title, an epithet of Jupiter, 
under the Christian Emperors of Constantinople. 
(See Gibbon's Roman Empire, ii. 17; Dallaway's Con- 
stantinople, p. 110.) Constantine adorned the baths 
with statues, and for these Christodorus wrote in- 
scriptions. That on the statue of Hesiod is quoted 
by Fulvius Ursinus, from the Greek Epigrams : 

Midst mountain nymphs in brass th' Ascraean stood, 
Uttering the heaven-breathed song in his infuriate mood. 

The collections of antiquities by Fulvius Ursinus, 
Gronovius, and Bellorius exhibit a gem, a busto and 
a basso-relievo, together with a truncated her ma ; 
which the ingenious artist who designed the frontis- 
piece to this edition has united with one of the heads. 
The bust in the Pembroke collection differs from all 
these. In fact the sculptures, whether of Hesiod or 
Homer, are only interesting as antiquities of art; 
for the likenesses assigned to eminent poets by the 
Grecian artists were mostly imaginary : * and must 
evidently have been so in such ancient instances as these. 

* See " Specimens of ancient Sculpture," by the society of 
Dilettanti. 



XXV111 DISSERTATION ON 

Greece, at an early period, seems to have possessed 
a spirit of just legislation, which formed in the very 
bosom of polytheism a certain code of practical re- 
ligion : and from the semi-barbarous age of Orpheus, 
down to the times of a Solon, a Plato, and a Pindar, 
Providence continued to raise up moral instructors of 
mankind, in the persons of bards, or legislators, or 
philosophers, who by their conceptions of a righteous 
governor of the universe, and their maxims of social 
duty and natural piety, counteracted the degrading 
influence of superstition on the manners of the peo- 
ple : and sowed the germs of that domestic and pub- 
lic virtue which so long upheld in power and pros- 
perity the sister communities of Greece. The same 
spirit pervades the writings of Hesiod. 

It is evident even in the times that have passed 
since the gospel light was shed abroad among the 
nations, that a perverted system of theology may 
perfectly consist with a pure practical religion : that 
scholastic subtleties, unscriptural traditions, and un- 
charitable dogmas, may constitute the creed, while the 
religion of primitive Christianity influences the heart. 
So, in estimating the character of Hesiod, we must 
separate those superstitions which belong to a tradi- 
tionary mythology, from that system of opinions 
which respected the guidance of human life ; the ac- 
countableness of nations and individuals to a heavenly 
judge; and the principles of public equity and popu- 
lar justice which he derived from the national institu- 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XXIX 

tions. If we examine his poems in this view of their 
tendency and spirit, we shall find abundant cause for 
admiration and respect of a man, who, born and nur- 
tured upon the lap of heathen superstition, could 
shadow out the maxims of truth in such beautiful 
allegories, and recommend the practice of virtue in 
such powerful and affecting appeals to the conscience 
and the reason. 

They, however, who can feel the infinite superi- 
ority of Christianity over every system of philosophic 
morals, will naturally expect that the morality of 
Hesiod should come short of that point of purity, 
which he, who reads our nature, proposed through 
the revealer of his will as a standard for the emula- 
tion of his creatures. But in the zeal of commenting 
upon an adopted author, we find that every thing 
equivocal has been strained to some unobjectionable 
sense; we are presented with Christian graces for 
heathen virtues ; and Hesiod is not permitted to be 
absurd even in his superstitions ; which are thought 
to involve some refined emblematical meaning ; some 
lesson of ethical wisdom or of economical prudence. 

The similitude of patriarch and prophet, with 
whom he is compared by Robinson, is not a very 
exaggerated comparison, in so far as respects the 
simplicity of an ancient husbandman, laying down 
rules for the general ceconomy of life ; or the graver 
functions of a philosopher, denouncing the visitations 
of divine justice on nations and their legislators, 



XXX DISSERTATION ON 

greedy of the gains of corruption. But the learned 
editor is unfortunate in selecting for his praise the meek 
and placable disposition of Hesiod as completing the 
patriarchal character. The indignation which Hesiod 
felt at the injuries done him by a brother, and the 
venality of his judges, might reasonably excuse the 
bitterness of rebuke : but he should not be held up 
as a model of equanimity and forbearance. To this 
graceless brother he seldom ever addresses himself in 
any gentler terms than ^tya. vmis, greatly foolish : and 
I question whether Perses, if he could rise from the 
dead, would confess himself very grateful for the 
tenderness of this reprehension. 

The adverse decision in the law-suit with his bro- 
ther must be confessed to be the hinge on which the 
alleged corruptness of his times perpetually turns: 
yet as he does not conceal the personal interest which 
he has in the question, his frankness wins our con- 
fidence; and simplicity and candour are so plainly 
marked in his grave and artless style, that we are in- 
sensibly led to form an exception in his favour as to 
the judgment of the character from the writer ; to 
believe his praises of frugality and temperance sin- 
cere ; and to coincide with Paterculus, in the opinion 
that he was a man of a contented and philosophical 
mind, " fond of the leisure and tranquillity " of rustic 
life. 

His countrymen, as Addison expresses it, must 
have regarded him " as the oracle of the neighbour- 



THE LIFE OF HESIOD. XXXI 

hood." Plutarch adverts to his medical knowledge, 
in the person of Cleodemus the physician ; and when 
we consider that he possessed sufficient astronomy for 
the purposes of agriculture, and that he carried his 
zeal for science even into nautical details, of which, 
notwithstanding, he confesses his inexperience, we 
shall acknowledge him to have been a man of extra- 
ordinary attainments for the times in which he lived. 



SECTION II. 
ON THE JERA OF HESIOD. 



THE question of the sera when Hesiod flourished, 
and whether he were the elder or the junior of Homer, 
or his contemporary, has given rise to such endless 
disputes, that Pausanias declines giving any opinion 
on the subject. Some of the moderns have attempted 
to ascertain the point from internal evidence : 1st, by 
the character of style : 2dly, by philological criticism : 
3dly, by astronomical calculation. 

In the first instance they are unfortunately by no 
means agreed. Justus Lipsius asserts that a greater 
simplicity and more of the rudeness of antiquity are 
apparent in Hesiod : Salmasius insists that Hesiod 
is more smooth and finished, and less imbued with 
antiquity than Homer. 

As to the argument of Heinsius respecting 
Tsxfuupopai being used by Homer in the sense of to 
effect or bring to pass, and by Hesiod in that of to 
appoint, contrive, or will ; and as to the former being 
the more ancient acceptation ; the proof totally fails : 
inasmuch as Homer has repeatedly used the word in 



THE 2EUA OF HESIOD* XXXU1 

in the latter sense : and with regard to the use of 
$e[jura$ by Homer for law, when Hesiod uses vopxc, 
which is asserted not to have been known in Homer's 
age, the objection is vague ; unless we suppose that 
Homer's poems * contained every word in the lan- 
guage. The argument of the celebrated Dr. Samuel 
Clarke, in favour of their being of a different age, 
and of Hesiod being the junior, turns on the word 
xaXog ; which in Homer is invariably made long in 
the first syllable; whereas Hesiod makes it either 
long or short at pleasure : and on the word ovopivoc ; 
of which the penult is long in Homer, and short in 
Hesiod. But should the argument affect their being 
coeval, it does not appear why Hesiod might not be 
the elder : for who will be bold enough to decide as 
to the most ancient quantity ? nor could we possibly 
determine the question, unless we were in possession 
of other poets, contemporary with Homer, who should 
be found to conform exactly with the Homeric pro- 
sody : in which case the disagreement of Hesiod might 
favour a presumption of his belonging, at least, to a 
different age. The criticism seems, however, in all 
respects unworthy of so acute a reasoner as Dr. 
Clarke : for surely the difference of country alone 
might induce a difference of prosodial usage, no less 
than a dissimilarity of dialect. But the most decisive 
answer to all such minute criticisms appears to be, 

* Robinson, Dissertatio de Hesiodo. 
c 



XXXIV DISSERTATION ON 

that all the evidence afforded us on historical autho- 
rity respecting the discovery, collection, and arrange- 
ment of the poems ascribed to Homer, justifies the 
presumption that their dialect, diction, and prosody 
have undergone * such modifications and changes, as 
to baffle all chronological reasoning drawn from the 
present state of the poems. 

Scaliger and Vossius have thought that the aera of 
Hesiod could be ascertained within seventy years, 
more or less, by astronomical calculation, from the 
following passage of The Works and Days. 

When sixty days have circled, since the sun 
Turn'd from his wintry tropic, then the star 
Arcturus, leaving ocean's sacred flood, 
First whole-apparent makes his evening rise. 

It is singular that so great a philosopher as Dr. 
Priestley should also have argued for the certainty of 
the same method of chronology in this instance of 
Hesiod. (Lectures on History, Lect. xii. p. 99.) 
But neither the accuracy nor the precise nature of 
the astronomical observation here commemorated 
can possibly be ascertained. It is uncertain whether 

* <c If we consider the chronology of Homer's life to be suffi- 
ciently established, one would be tempted to believe that his 
rhapsodies, as they were called, have not only been arranged and 
digested in a subsequent period, as has been asserted on good 
authority, but have even undergone something similar to the 
refaccimento by Berni of Boyardo's Orlando." Essays annexed 
to Professor Millar's History of the English Government. 



THE iERA OF HESIOD. XXXV 

the single star A returns may not be placed for the 
whole constellation of Bootes ; of which there are 
examples in Columella, and other writers. It is 
wholly uncertain whether this rising was observed in 
Hesiod's own country, or even in Hesiod's own time ; 
a knowledge of both which particulars is essential to 
our making a just calculation. We shall scarcely 
ascribe to Hesiod a more scientific accuracy than to 
subsequent astronomers ; yet we find that even their ob- 
servations of the solstices and of the risings and set- 
tings of the stars, are ambiguous, and most probably 
fallacious. Hesiod makes the achronycal rising of 
Arcturus sixty days after the winter solstice : many 
other writers, and particularly Pliny, say the same. 
Now setting the difference between Hesiod and Pliny at 
800 years, this will make a difference of eleven days 
in the time of the phenomenon. Both therefore 
cannot have written from actual observation, and 
probably neither did. The ancients copied from 
each other without scruple ; because they knew not 
till the time of Hipparchus, that the times of rising 
&c. varied by the course of ages. They seem be^ 
sides to have copied from writers of various latitudes : 
unconscious that this also made a difference. We 
shall not then be disposed to rely on this, or similar 
passages of Hesiod, for any secure data of chrono- 

lo gy- 

In the absence of internal evidence we are there- 
fore referred to the opinions of antiquity. There is a 

c 2 



XXXVI DISSERTATION ON 

remark of Gibbon in that part of his Posthumous 
Writings entitled " Extraits raisonne's de mes Lec- 
tures," which lays down an excellent rule of judgment 
in matters of chronology. He very justly observes, 
that the differences of chronologers may be recon- 
ciled by the consideration that they reckoned from 
different aeras of the person's life. The fixing the 
date from different periods, as from the birth or 
death, the production of a work, * or any other re- 
markable event of a person's life, might easily make 
the difference of a century. "So that we may 
establish it as a rule of criticism, that where these 
diversities do not exceed the natural term of human 
life we ought to think of reconciling, and not of op- 
posing them. There are, indeed, many writers, with 
respect to Homer, whom it is impossible to conci- 
liate; since they take in so enormous a period as 416 
years, from the return of the Heraclidae A. C. 1104 
to the twenty-third Olympiad A. C. 688. But be- 
sides that they are of inferior note, the great differ- 
ence among them leaves the authority of each to 
stand singly by itself." 

This reasoning very much diminishes whatever 

* It is strange, however, that a critic like Gibbon should have 
allowed himself to talk of a definite time when " Homer wrote 
his Iliad; " in an age when alphabetic characters were not in use; 
when poets composed only rhapsodies, or such portions as could 
be recited at one time ; which were preserved by oral tradition 
through the recitations of succeeding bards. 



THE JERA OF HESIOD. XXXV11 

force might be derived from the authority of names, 
to the computations of those writers who contend that 
Hesiod is a century younger than Homer. These are 
the Latin writers ; whose concurrence is however so 
exact as to induce a belief of their having merely 
copied from each other. Thus Velleius Paterculus, 
who wrote his history 30 years after Christ, says that 
Homer flourished 950 years before his time ; that is, 
before Christ 920 ; and Pliny about the year 78 com- 
puted that Homer lived 1000 years before him; be- 
fore Christ 920. Paterculus follows Cicero in placing • 
Hesiod 120 years after Homer : Pliny, Porphyry, 
and Solinus, concur in the order of their ages, and 
in the interval between them : varying only from ten 
to twenty or thirty years. But on the plan laid down 
by Gibbon, this chronology might be reconciled with 
that of Ephorus, and Varro : who, according to 
Aulus Gellius, made Hesiod and Homer contempo- 
raries : as did Plutarch and Philostratus. 

This opinion is supported by the ancient authority 
of Herodotus ; and by that of the Chronicler of the 
Parian Marbles. The authenticity of these marbles 
has, indeed, been impugned by a learned dissertation 
of Mr. Robertson, printed in 1788. To this an an- 
swer was published in 1789, by Mr. Hewlett: and 
Mr. Gough has defended the genuineness of the 
Chronicle in a Memoir of the Archaeologia, vol. ix. 
Gibbon observes, " I respect that monument as a 
useful, as an uncorrupt monument of antiquity : but 



XXXVUI ON THE iERA OF HESIOD. 

why should I prefer its authority to that of Herodo- 
tus? it is more modern: (B. C. 264:) its author is 
uncertain : we know not from what source he drew 
his chronology."* The Parian Marble, however, if not 
a modern forgery, may be allowed to stand on the 
same footing with other Greek tablets of chronology. 

Herodotus was born B. C. 484. He affirms Hesiod 
and Homer to have preceded his own time by four 
hundred years : thus making them contemporaries ; 
and fixing their aera at B. C. 884. 

The Chronicler of the Marbles fixes the aera of 
Hesiod at 944 years B.C.: and that of Homer at 
907; by which Hesiod is placed 37 years before 
Homer ; a difference, however, too trifling to affect 
the chronological evidence in favour of their contem- 
porary existence. 

* The first specimen of a regular tablet of chronology is said 
to have been given by Demetrius Phalereus in his as^ovt^v Avaypa^r , 
about the middle of the fourth century B. C. The historian 
Timaeus, who flourished in the time of Ptolemy Philalelphus, 
first arranged his narrative in the order of Olympiads ; which 
began B. C. 776. His contemporary Sosibius, gave a work en- 
titled xpovoov Avayp&pti : Apollodorus wrote the iwrttfa Xfonxn : and 
on such chronologers rests the credit of all later compilers, as 
well as of the Arundelian Marbles. Dr. Gillies. 

We are informed by Dr. Clarke, in his " Travels," that these 
marbles were not found in Paros, but in the Isle of Zia. 



SECTION III. 

ON THE POEMS OF HESIOD.* 



PAUSANIAS informs us that " the Boeotians, who 
dwell round Helicon, have a tradition among them 

* The following are enumerated as the lost poems of Hesiod. 

The Catalogue of Women or Heroines, in five parts, of which 
the fifth appears to have been entitled " The Herogony." Suidas. 

The Melampodia ; from the sooth-sayer Melampus ; a poem on 
divination. Pausanias, Athen^eus. 

The great Astronomy or Stellar Book. Pliny. 

Descent of Theseus into Hades. Pausanias. 

Admonitions of Chiron to Achilles. Pausanias, Aristo- 
phanes. 

Soothsayings and Explications of Signs. Pausanias. 

Divine Speeches. Maximus Tyrius. 

Great Actions. Athen^us. 

Of the Dactyli of Cretan Ida; discoverers of iron. Suidas, 
Pliny. 

Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis. Tzetzes. 

iEgimius. Athen^eus. Apocryphal. 

Elegy on Batrachus, a beloved youth. Suidas. 

Circuit of the Earth. Strabo. 

The Marriage of Ceyx. Athen;eus, Plutarch. 

On Herbs. Pliny. 



Xl DISSERTATION ON 

that Hesiod wrote nothing besides the poem of 
6 Works : ' and from this they take away the intro- 
duction, and say that the poem properly begins with 
The Strifes. They showed me a leaden tablet near 
the fountain, which was almost entirely eaten away 
with age, and on which were engraven the Works 
and Days of Hesiod." 

It is difficult to account for the manifest mutilation 

On Medicine. Plutarch. 

Fabricius (Bibliotheca Graeca) supposes the two latter subjects 
to be alluded to as incidental topics in other works of Hesiod. 
But the passages quoted by him from Pliny and Plutarch seem 
to justify the opinion that they meant to advert to distinct poems. 
There is nothing in the works extant which favours the former 
idea. Mallows and asphodel are the only herbs mentioned : and 
that merely as synonymous with a frugal meal : like the cichorea 
levesque malvee of Horace : nor is there anything medical ; 
for the passages respecting bathing, children, &c. are mere super- 
stitions, unconnected with health. Athenaeus (book iii.) quotes 
some verses as ascribed to Hesiod respecting the fishes fit for 
salting ; but says they seem to be rather the verses of a cook 
than of a poet; and adds that cities are mentioned in them 
which were posterior to Hesiod's time. Lilius Gyraldus states 
that the fables of iEsop have been assigned to Hesiod. Plutarch, 
indeed, observes that iEsop might himself have profited by 
Hesiod's apologue of the Hawk and the Nightingale; and Quin- 
tilian mentions Hesiod, and not iEsop, as the earliest fabulist ; 
which passages may have been strained to bear the above mean- 
ing. As to the Greek fables, extant under the name of iEsop, 
they are proved to be spurious. See Bentley's Dissertation on 
the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, &c. and the fables of 
iEsop* 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. xli 

and corruption of this venerable poet's compositions, 
since it appears that they were extant in a complete, 
or at least, a more perfect form, so late as the age of 
Vespasian. Pliny, book xiv. complaining of the agri- 
cultural ignorance of his age, observes that even the 
names of several trees enumerated by Hesiod had 
grown out of knowledge : and in book xv. he adverts 
to Hesiod's opinion of the unprofitableness of the 
olive. From some verses in the Astronomicon of 
Manilius, an Augustan writer, it would seem that he 
had treated of ingrafting, and of the soils adapted to 
corn and vines. 

He sings how corn in plains, how vines in hills 
Delight, how both with vast increase the olive fills : 
How foreign grafts th' adulterous stock receives, 
Bears stranger fruit and wonders at her leaves. Creech. 

and it is remarkable that the line in Virgil trans- 
lated by Dryden, 

And old Ascrean verse through Roman cities sing, 
occurs in that book of the Georgics which is dedica- 
ted to planting, ingrafting, and the dressing of vines. 
In the " Works," as they now appear, we find no 
mention of any trees but such as are fit for the fa- 
brication of the plough: and it is plain that the 
countrymen of Pliny could be in no danger of for- 
getting the names of the oak, the elm, or the bay- 
tree. Of the olive, and of ingrafting, there is no 
mention whatever, and but a cursory notice on the 
vine : nor is there any comparison of the soils re- 
spectively adapted to the growth of vines and of corn. 



Xlii DISSERTATION ON 

The poem in some editions has been divided into 
two books ; under the general title of " Works and 
Days," but with a subdivision entitled Days only: 
by which arrangement it is made virtually to consist 
of three books. In Loesner's edition the distinction 
of the second book is done away : but the subdivision 
of Days is retained. From either mode of disposi- 
tion this incoherency results : that Works and Days 
no longer appear to be the general title, but applica- 
ble only to the former part of the poem, in which 
there is no mention of Days at all. The ancient 
copies, as Heinsius has shown, had no division into 
parts. If any minor distinction be deemed admissi- 
ble for the more convenient arrangement of the sub- 
ject, the disposition of Henry Stephens is obviously 
the most rational : whereby the poem is divided into 
two parts: the first entitled " Works" only, and the 
second " Days." 

Cooke explains the " Works " of Hesiod to mean 
the labours of agriculture, and the " Days " the 
proper seasons for the Works; but erroneously. The 
term Works is to be taken with greater latitude, as 
including not only labours, but actions ; and as re- 
ferring equally to the moral, as to the industrious 
ceconomy of human life. It is evident also that the 
term " Days " does not respect the seasons of labour 
specified in the course of the poem, but the days of 
superstitious observance at the end of it: and of 
these many have no reference whatever to the works 
of husbandry. 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. xliii 

The Theogony has all the appearance of being a 
patchwork of fragments ; consisting of some genuine 
Hesiodean passages ; * pieced together with verses of 
other poets, and probably of a different age. The 
mythology is occasionally inconsistent with itself: thus 
the god Chrysaor is re-introduced among the demi- 
gods ; and the Fates are born over again from differ- 
ent parents : an incongruity which Robinson attempts 
to obviate by an ingenious, but over-refined con- 
struction. 

The proem bears the internal marks of compara- 
tively modern refinement. It has not the simple 
outline of Hesiod. The whole passage has the air of 
one of those introductions which the rhapsodists 
were accustomed to prefix to their recitations : it is 
conceived in a more florid taste than the usual com- 
position of Hesiod, but expressed with considerable 
elegance of fancy. 

These arguments are not affected by the individual 
opinions of Romans and Greeks, themselves modern 
with respect to Hesiod. Ovid in his " Art of Love" 
alludes to this proem : 

* Manilius, describing the subjects of Hesiod, has a line 

Atque iterum patrio nascentem corpore Bacchum, 

excellently rendered by Creech, a translator now too fastidiously 
undervalued, 

And twice-born Bacchus burst the Thunderer's thigh : 

but this tale, which Ovid and Nonnus have related, is not found 
in the present theogony. 



Xliv DISSERTATION ON 

The sister Muses did I ne'er behold, 

While, Ascra ! midst thy vales, I fed my fold. 

Plutarch in the ninth book of his Symposiacs, quotes 
two of the verses in illustration of the propriety of 
epithets: Pausanias appeals to the presentation of 
the branch as evidence that Hesiod did not sing to 
the lyre ; and Lucian in his dialogue " on the il- 
literate book-collector" observes, " how can you 
have known these things without having learnt them ? 
how or whence? unless at any time you have re- 
ceived a branch from the Muses like that shepherd. 
They, indeed, did not disdain to appear to the shep- 
herd, though a rough hairy man, with a sun-burnt 
complexion; but they would never have deigned to 
come near you : " and in the " Dialogue with Hesiod" 
he banters him as promising to sing of futurity ; and 
affecting the Chalcas or Phineas, when there is nothing 
of prophecy in his whole poem. An indirect argu- 
ment for the spuriousness of the verses. 

It must have been an impression of this proem 
which led Gibbon in his " Notes on the editions of 
the Classics" (Miscellaneous Works, vol. v.) to ob- 
serve, " in the Theogony I can discern a more recent 
hand : " for many details in the poem have all the 
internal evidence of antiquity. Perhaps the cata- 
logue of names, which Robinson superfluously defends 
on the score of their metrical harmony, and compares 
with Homer's catalogue of ships, of which the merit 
is geographical and historical, may furnish a strong 
presumptive argument of antiquity. They would 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. xlv 

appear to have been composed at a period when al- 
phabetic writing was unknown, and the memory of 
names and things depended on the technical help of 
oral tradition. 

Pausanias says, speaking of the Theogony, " There 
are some who consider Hesiod as the author of this 
poem." That some theogony was composed by Hesiod 
is evidenced by the passage in Herodotus ; who, speak- 
ing of Hesiod and Homer, affirms, " these are they 
who framed a Theogony for the Greeks : " and the 
fable of Pandora in the Theogony, that we now pos- 
sess, bears characteristical marks of having come from 
the same hand as that in the Works and Days. 

Of the Shield of Hercules it is asserted by Cooke, 
that " there is great reason to believe this poem was 
not in existence in the time of Augustus : " but he 
merely advances, in proof of this assertion, that 
" Manilius, who was an author of the Augustan 
age, takes notice of no other than the Theogony, 
and the Works and Days : " yet this, if indeed any- 
thing decisive could be concluded from the omission, 
would only prove that he did not believe the piece 
authentic. He further remarks that critics should not 
suppose it to have formed a part of another poem, 
unless they could show when, where, or by whom 
the title had been changed. This is surely to demand 
a very unreasonable as well as unnecessary kind of 
proof. The distinct title affords, in fact, no evidence 
for the completeness of the poem ; as we learn from 
iElian, that portions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey 



xlvi DISSERTATION ON 

were known by such separate titles as, " the Funeral 
Games of Patroclus," the " Grot of Calypso;" and sung 
as detached pieces. The argument of Cooke that it 
cannot be an imitation of the Shield of Achilles, 
because the description of the mere Shield occupies 
but a small part of the piece, is equivalent to con- 
tending that Virgil could not have imitated the simile 
of Diana in the first book of the iEneid from the 
Odyssey, because the rest of the book bears no re- 
semblance to any thing in Homer. A slight pre- 
sumption of the Shield being from the hand of 
Hesiod may be founded on a quotation of Polybius, 
from one of Hesiod' s lost works : the historian speaks 
of the Macedonians as being " such as Hesiod de- 
scribes the iEacidae ; rejoicing in war rather than in 
the banquet : " book v. ch. i. In the Shield, Iblaus 
says of himself and Hercules, that battles " are better 
to them than a feast." The expression, however, 
may have been proverbial, and used by more poets 
than one. 

The poem is ascribed to Hesiod by Athenaeus : but 
Aristophanes the grammarian rejected it as spurious, 
and Longinus speaks doubtingly of Hesiod being the 
author. Tanaquil Faber confidently asserts " that 
they who think the Shield not of Hesiod, have but a 
very superficial acquaintance with Grecian poetry : " 
and on the other side Joseph Scaliger speaks of the 
author, whoever he may be, of the Shield ; which 
the critical world by a preposterous judgment have 
attributed to the poet of Ascra. It is not by a re- 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. xlvti 

ference .to authorities that the question must be de- 
cided, but by an examination of the interior structure 
of the poem, and the evidence of style. 

The objections to a great part of the poem consist 
in its unlikeness to the style of Hesiod, and its re- 
semblance to that of Homer. 

Robinson insists in reply that it is very usual for 
the same author to show a diversity of style ; which 
is at least an admission that Hesiod is here different 
from himself. But to his question " whether we de- 
mand the same fervour and force in the Georgics of 
Virgil as in the iEnied ? " it may be asked in return 
whether a certain similarity of style be not clearly 
distinguishable in these poems, however distinct their 
nature? there is, indeed, a difference, but not ab- 
solutely a discordance. 

The whole laboured argument which he has be- 
stowed on the necessary dissimilarity of didactic and 
heroical composition is plainly foreign to the question. 
Who would dream of urging as an objection to its 
authenticity, that the style of " The Shield " is 
unlike the georgical style of Hesiod ? the objection 
is, that it is unlike his epic style : and Robinson has 
brought the question to a fair issue by his remark 
that the Battle of the Gods abounds no less than the 
Shield with the ornaments of poetry. 

It is not sufficient that these passages respectively 
display ornament; we must examine whether the) r 
display a similar style of ornament. Now the dc- 



Xlviii DISSERTATION ON 

scriptive part of the Shield is in a gorgeous taste ; 
unlike the bold and simple majesty of the Theogony, 
There is a visible effort to surprise by something mar- 
vellous and uncommon ; which often verges on con- 
ceit and extravagance. For sublime images we are 
presented with gigantic and distorted figures, and 
with hideous conceptions of disgusting horror. There 
is. indeed a considerable degree of genius even in 
these faulty passages : but whoever perceives a re- 
semblance in the imagery of the Shield to that of 
the Titanic War, may equally trace an affinity be- 
tween Virgil and Ariosto. 

These reasonings affect that part of the poem 
chiefly, which is occupied with the mere description 
of the Shield; but a single circumstance will show 
that the passages which represent the action of the 
poem are both foreign to Hesiod's manner, and are 
in the manner of Homer. I allude to the employ- 
ment of similes and to the character of those similes. 

Homer is fond of comparisons ; and of such, par- 
ticularly, as are drawn from animated nature. The 
Shield of Hercules also abounds with similies, and 
they are precisely of this sort. But the frequent use 
of similitudes is so far from being characteristic of 
Hesiod, that in the whole Battle of the Giants but 
one occurs ; and only one in the Combat of Jupiter 
and Typhaeus; and in both we look in vain for any 
comparison drawn from lions, or boars, or vultures. 

Robinson appears, indeed, conscious of a more 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. xhx 

crowded and diversified imagery in the Shield than 
we usually meet with in Hesiod's poetry ; for he is 
driven to the miserable alternative of supposing that 
Hesiod may have produced the Shield in his youth, 
and his other works in his old age. Longinus in the 
same manner accounts for the comparative quiet sim- 
plicity of the Odyssey. The supposition in either 
case is founded on the erroneous principle, that a 
poem is beautiful in proportion to the noise and fury 
of its action, or the accumulation of its ornament. 
The notion of the genius necessarily declining with the 
decline of youthful vigour is completely unphiloso- 
phical ; and is contradicted by repeated experience of 
the human faculties. It was in his old age that 
Dryden wrote his " Fables." 

As to that portion of the poem which is properly 
the Shield, and from which the whole piece takes its 
title, it is self-evident that this must have been bor- 
rowed from the description in the Iliad, or the de- 
scription in the Iliad from this. I do not allude 
merely to a whole series of verses being literally the 
same in each; but to long passages of description, 
bearing so close a resemblance as to preclude the idea 
of accidental coincidence; such as the bridal pro- 
cession, the siege, the harvest, and the vintage. 

Robinson admits the imitation; but thinks the 
partisans of Homer cannot easily show that Homer 
was not the copyist. It were, however, easy to de- 
cide from internal evidence which is the copy. 

d 



1 DISSERTATION ON 

Where two poems are found so nearly resembling 
each other as to convey at once the impression of 
plagiarism, the scale of originality must doubtless 
preponderate in favour of that which is the more 
simple in style and invention. Where a poem 
abounds with florid figures and irregular flights of 
imagination, it is inconceivable that a copy of that 
poem should exhibit a chaste simplicity of fancy : but 
it is highly natural that an imitator should think to 
transcend his original by the aid of meretricious or- 
nament ; that he should mistake bombast for subli- 
mity, and attempt to dazzle and astonish. Of this 
sort of elaborate refinement a single instance will 
serve in illustration. 

Both poets encircle their bucklers with the ocean. 
Robinson gives the preference to the author of The 
Shield of Hercules ; alleging that his description is 
decorated with the utmost beauty of imagery ; while 
that of The Shield of Achilles is naked of embel- 
lishment. To the unornamented style of the passage 
in Homer I appeal, as demonstrating the superiority 
of his judgment, and as thereby establishing beyond 
dispute the fact of his originality. 

In one condensed verse he pours around the verge 
of the buckler " the great strength of the ocean 
stream." An image of roundness and completeness 
is here at once presented to the eye, and fills the mind. 
But the author of the Shield of Hercules, evidently 
striving to excel Homer, says that "high-soaring 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. 11 

swans there clamoured aloud, and many floated on 
the surface of the billows, and near them fishes were 
leaping tumultuously. " Who does not perceive that 
the full image of the rounding ocean is broken and 
rendered indistinct by this multiplicity of images? 
The description is, indeed, picturesque ; at nunc non 
erat his locus. 

Yet that Hesiod was the plagiarist will scarcely be 
contended, until the assertion already advanced re- 
specting the epic simplicity of his style shall have 
been set aside. 

But the former part of the piece has all the inter- 
nal marks of having been composed by an author of 
totally dissimilar genius. It has the stamp of the 
ancient simplicity upon it. A few passages are mag- 
nificent ; but still in a noble and pure taste. Here 
then I discern the hand of Hesiod. But the pre- 
sumption rests on surer grounds than characteristics 
of style. 

In the concluding verses of the Theogony, the 
poet invokes the Muses to sing the praises of women ; 
and among the lost works of Hesiod, whose titles 
are dispersed in ancient authors, are enumerated the 
four Catalogues of Women or Heroines ; and the 
Herogony, or Generation of Heroes descended from 
them ; which are thought to have been five connected 
parts of the same poem. That this was the work of 
Hesiod we have the testimony of Pausanias; who 
alludes to the tale of Aurora and Cephalus, and that 
d2 



lii DISSERTATION ON 

of Iphigenia, as treated by Hesiod in his Catalogue 
of Women. The fourth Catalogue had acquired a 
secondary title of Hoiai [xeyutet; the great Eoiai; 
fantastically framed out of the words >j onj, or suck 
as, which introduced the stories of the successive 
heroines. From the use of this title a strange idea 
got abroad that Eoa was the name of a young woman 
of Ascra, the mistress of Hesiod. 

Boeotian Hesiod, vers'd in various lore, 
Forsook the mansion where he dwelt before : 
The Heliconian village sought, and woo'd 
The maid of Ascra in her scornful mood : 
There did the suffering bard his lays proclaim, 
The strain beginning with Eoa's name. 

Hermisianax of Colophon, in Athenaeus, book xiii * 

Among the minor fragments of Hesiod are pre- 
served three passages, each beginning with the words 
n on?, introductory of a female description. They are 
naturally considered as remnants of the Fourth Ca- 
talogue. Now the piece entitled " The Shield of 
Hercules " also opens with these identical words, in- 
troductory of the story of Alcmena. 

Fabricius decides that these introductory words 
will not permit us to doubt that " The Shield of 
Hercules" formed part of the Fourth Catalogue; 

* In the same poena, which is a love-elegy to his mistress Leon- 
tium on the sufferings of lovers, Homer is made to visit Ithaca, 
" sighing like furnace" for the chaste Penelope. 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. liii 

but the inference does not necessarily extend beyond 
the first portion of the piece. Robinson justly argues 
on the incongruity of the poet's digressing from the 
tale of Alcmena, to tell a story of Hercules ; and he 
therefore conjectures that this piece is a fragment of 
the Heroical Genealogies ; but aware that the con- 
currence of the exordium with the above-mentioned 
fragments, points the attention to the Fourth Cata- 
logue, he cuts the Gordian knot by changing »j wij, 
or such as, into vj om, she alone. 

Guietus suggests the reading of uohj, rising with the 
dawn ; for the purpose of rendering the piece com- 
plete in itself: but the very basis of the argument in 
favour of the authenticity of the poem as a work of 
Hesiod, is the striking coincidence of the introduc- 
tory lines with the fragments of the Fourth Cata- 
logue. This may be set aside by the ingenious ex- 
pedient of altering the text ; bat if the text be suf- 
fered to remain, the presumption, so far as it ex- 
tends, is irresistible. I do conceive that Robinson, 
when his judgment consented to this alteration of 
the reading, yielded a very important advantage to 
those who dispute the genuineness of the poem, as 
the production of- Hesiod; that by the abandon- 
ment of these remarkably coincident words the diffi- 
culty of proving the poem to be a fragment is in- 
creased two-fold ; and that with the fact of its being 
a fragment is closely linked the fact of its authen- 
ticity. 



liv DISSERTATION ON 

From what has been said, it will perhaps be thought 
extraordinary that the idea of a cento of dispersed 
fragments, pieced together and interpolated with 
Homeric imitations, never suggested itself to those 
critics who have bestowed such elaborate scrutiny on 
the composition of the poem. 

In the scholium of the Aldine edition of Hesiod, 
it is stated, " The beginning of the Shield as far as 
the 250th verse is said to form a part of the Fourth 
Catalogue." Here is at once an admission of the 
patchwork texture of the piece ; and we may be al- 
lowed to conjecture that the scholiast may possibly be 
mistaken as to the exact number of lines. This 
portion, in fact, comprehends the meeting of Her- 
cules with Cygnus, and his arming for battle ; which 
follows, with a strange and startling abruptness, im- 
mediately on his birth ; and seems to have little con- 
nexion with the praises of a heroine, in a poem de- 
voted exclusively to celebrated women. 

I should, therefore, be inclined to consider the 
first fifty-six lines only as belonging to the Fourth 
Catalogue. This introductory part, ending with the 
birth of Hercules, is awkwardly coupled with his 
warlike adventure in the grove of Apollo by the line 

Who also slew Cygnus, the magnanimous son of Mars. 

This line is perceptibly the link of connexion be- 
tween the two fragments, and betrays the hand of the 
interpolator. The succeeding passage, as far as verse 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. Jv 

153, I conjecture to have formed a part of the He- 
rogony. It seems probable that Hesiod's description 
of the sculpture on the Shield of Hercules was li- 
mited to the dragon in the centre, and the figure of 
Discord hovering above it; and was meant to end 
with the effects produced by the sight of this shield 
on the hero's enemies. This short description appears 
to have suggested the experiment of ingrafting upon 
it a florid parody of the Shield of Achilles ; and that 
here precisely we may fix the commencement of the 
spurious additions is probable from the verses 

Ofcct, h a-<pi, urepi pivoio a-anum*, 
leipia a^tthioiOy xtXaivn muQirai air. 

Through the flesh that wastes away 
Beneath the parching sun. their whitening bones 
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust : 

being instantly followed by a passage from the Achil- 
lean Shield : Ev 3s vpoiu%t$ 9 &c. 

Pursuit was there, and fiercely rallying Flight. 

I suppose, therefore, the description of the pu- 
trefying corses of the foes of Hercules to have joined 
the 320th verse ; where he is made to grasp the 
shield and ascend the chariot. Several of the sub- 
sequent passages, as, in particular, the description of 
the Cicada, appear to me genuine ; but they are vi- 
sibly patched with Homeric similes, which are in 
general mere plagiarisms ; and are not at all in unison 
with the style of the rest of the poem ; nor with the 



lvi DISSERTATION ON 

characteristic manner of Hesiod. This mixture of 
authenticity and imposture will explain the contra- 
dictory decisions of learned men ; who, in examining 
this curious question, have looked only at one side. 

It does not appear that Hesiod was the most an- 
cient author either of a theogony or a rural poem ; 
although Herodotus speaks of him as the first who 
framed a theogonic system for the Greeks, and Pliny 
cites him as the earliest didactic poet on agriculture. 
But tradition has preserved the fame of theogonies by 
Orpheus and Musaeus : and Tzetzes mentions two 
poems of Orpheus, the one entitled Works, the other 
Diaries ; the archetypes, probably, of The Works 
and Days. 

Quintilian observes that " Hesiod rarely rises, and 
a great part of him is occupied in names ; yet he is 
distinguished by useful sentences conveying precepts, 
and a commendable sweetness of words and con- 
struction ; and the palm is given him in that middle 
kind of writing." 

This is niggardly praise ; and is somewhat similar 
to that which the same critic awards to Apollonius 
Rhodius ; * whose picturesque style and impassioned 

* The Quarterly Reviewer, in his critique on my " Specimens 
of the Classic Poets," conceives it strange that I should prefer 
the Medea of Apollonius to Virgil's Dido; and talks of critical 
heresies. The deliberation of Medea on her purposed suicide, 
and her interview with Jason in the temple of Hecate, place the 
matter beyond all question; except with those who may be 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. lvti 

sentiment are honoured with the diluted commenda- 
tion of '* an equable mediocrity." Who that read 
the above character would suppose that Hesiod was 
at all superior to the gnomic or sententious poets ; 
such as Theognis or Phocylides ? that he had ever 
composed his Combat of Giants, or his Ages of Gold 
and of Iron ? 

If the battle of the Titans be Hesiod's genuine 
composition, and if the Shield, as there is reason to 
believe, contain authentic extracts from his Heroical 
Genealogies, we shall decide that Hesiod, as com- 
pared with Homer, is less rapid; less fervent in 
action ; less teeming with allusions and comparisons ; 
but grand, energetic, occasionally vehement and 
daring ; but more commonly proceeding with a slow 
and stately march. In the mental or moral sublime 
I consider Hesiod as superior to Homer. The per- 
sonification of Prayers in the latter is almost the 
only allegory that can be compared with the awful 
prosopopeia of Justice, weeping her wrongs at the 
feet of the Eternal : while Justice and Modesty, de- 
scribed as virgins in white raiment, ascending out of 
the sight of men into heaven, and the Holy Daemons, 
after having animated the bodies of just men, hover- 
ing round the earth, and keeping watch over human 
actions, are equalled by no conceptions in the Iliad 
or Odyssey. 

Addison, with that squeamish artificial taste which 

frightened by the word heresy into a surrender of their judgments 
to vulgar prejudice and traditional error. 



Jvili DISSERTATION ON 

distinguishes the age of Anne, as compared with that 
of Elizabeth, underrates, as might have been ex- 
pected, the vigorous simplicity of Hesiod. But the 
strong though simple sketches of the old Ascraean 
bard are often more striking than the finished paint- 
ings of the Mantuan. Critics admire the pastoral 
board of Virgil's Corycian husbandman ; but there 
is a far greater charm in the summer-repast of Hesiod : 
so picturesque in its scenery; so patriarchal in its 
manners. The winter tempest is a bolder copy of 
nature than any thing in the Latin Georgics ; more 
fresh in colouring ; more circumstantiated in detail. 
The rising of the north-wind, moving the ocean, 
rooting the pines and oaks from the tops of the moun- 
tains, and strewing them along the valleys, and after 
a pause, suddenly roaring in its strength through the 
depths of the forests ; the exquisite circumstances of 
life intermingled with the effects of the storm on in- 
animate nature ; the beasts quaking and grinding their 
teeth with cold and famine ; shuddering at the snow- 
flakes, and shrinking into dens and thickets ; the old 
man bent double with the blast ;* the delicate contrast 
of the young virgin, sheltered in a soft chamber 
under her mother's roof, and bathing previously to 
her nightly rest, compose a picture wild, romantic, 
and interesting in an uncommon degree. 

As a legendary mythologist the elegant tale of 

* This fine natural image is ridiculously parodied by Addison, 
" The old men, too, are bitterly pinched by the weather." Essay 
on Virgil's Georgics. 



THE POEMS OF HESIOD. lix 

Pandora, and the Island of the Blessed Spirits, are far 
beyond any thing of Ovid, and can only be compared 
with Homer : and as a poetical moralist, the strongest 
proof of his merit is, that innumerable sentences of 
Hesiod, as is well remarked by Voltaire in his " Dic- 
tionnaire Philosophique " have grown into proverbial 
axioms. Cicero observes in one of his Epistles ; " Let 
our dear Lepta learn Hesiod, and have by heart 
■ the gods have placed before virtue the sweat of the 
brow.' " His plain and downright rules of decency,* 
his superstitious saws, and his lumber of names, be- 
long to the manners of a semi-barbarous village and 
the learning of a dark age : his genius and his wis- 
dom are his own. From that which remains, muti- 
lated as it obviously is, we may form a judgment of 
what he would appear to us, if the whole of his nu- 
merous works, complete and unadulterated by foreign 
mixture, were submitted to our observation. Ex 
pede Herculem. 

* These were excluded from the first edition of my translation, 
but are now reinstated, as curiously illustrative of manners. 




SECTION IV. 
ON THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. 



DIOGENES LAERTIUS mentions that Pytha- 
goras feigned to have seen the soul of Hesiod in the 
infernal regions, bound to a brazen pillar, and howl- 
ing in torture for his false representations of the 
Deities : and that of Homer environed with serpents 
for the same reason. Plato, in a similar feeling, 
excluded both these poets from his ideal republic. 
It seems strange that the philosophers should have 
failed to perceive that Hesiod and Homer repeated 
merely the popular legends of their age ; as is abun- 
dantly evident from the style and manner of narra- 
tion and allusion throughout their poems. 

The following passage of Herodotus has been con- 
strued to mean that they were the absolute inven- 
tors of the Grecian theology ; " Whence each of the 
Gods came ; whether all have continually existed, or 
what figures they severally had, was known but 
lately ; or, if I may so speak, only yesterday ; for I 
am of opinion that Hesiod and Homer were older 
than myself by four hundred years, and not more ; 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. lxi 

these are they who framed a theogony for the 
Greeks, and gave titles to the gods ; distinguishing 
their honours and functions, and describing their 
forms." ' ' 

Against such an hypothesis several reasons obviously 
present themselves : 1 st, A plurality of gods could 
scarcely be the production of a single age, much less 
of one or two individuals : 2dly, It is not likely that 
Greece, which was visited by ^Egyptian and Phoe- 
nician colonists at an aera long antecedent to the 
age of Homer, should have been destitute of a re- 
ligious system : 3dly, It is not credible that a whole 
nation, at the suggestion of one or two bards, should 
have abandoned this received system in order to adopt 
a whole hierarchy of divinities, of whom they had 
never before heard. 

But the doubt of Herodotus, " whether they have 
continually existed," shows that he merely considered 
Hesiod and Homer in the light of collectors and 
illustrators of the ancient religion of their country ; 
and Wesseling accordingly interprets wonjo-avTsj as 
referring to arrangement and description, not inven- 
tion. This stupid inference could in fact never have 
been drawn, had Herodotus been compared with 
himself: as in a preceding passage he says, " Nearly 
all the names of the gods have come into Greece from 
iEgypt ; for I have ascertained it to be a fact that 
they are of barbaric extraction." 

Herodotus, however, seems to have been in error, 



lxii DISSERTATION ON 

even as to this position of Hesiod and Homer having 
first digested the mythology of Greece into a system : 
and as he could not be ignorant that theogonies were 
ascribed to poets reputed their elders, such as Mu- 
saeus and Orpheus, he was reduced to the alternative 
of making these poets their juniors. " Those poets," 
he observes, " who were said to be before them, 
were in my opinion after them." 

But Cicero (in Bruto, cap. xviii.) sensibly argues, 
" nor can it be doubted that there were poets before 
Homer ; which may be inferred from the songs de- 
scribed by him as sung in the banquets of the Phaea- 
cians and the suitors." Fabricius makes a comment, 
that " it cannot be proved from this, that Greek 
poems, before Homer, were committed to writing, 
and so handed down to posterity." As if the poems 
of Homer himself had been transmitted in any 
other manner than by oral tradition ! * 

The pre-existence of religious rites seems, indeed, 
to involve that of poetical cosmogonies and mytho- 
logical hymns. Before the invention of letters there 
was no other traditionary record, or vehicle of po- 

* We know from Homer (II. vi.) that when Prsetus sent Belle- 
rophon to the king of Lycia he gave him, not a written letter, but 
o-nfA-araXvypa, mournful signs ; (probably like the picture-writing 
of the Mexicans :) writing could not be common till many cen- 
turies afterwards, since the first written laws were given in 
Greece only six centuries B. C. (Herod. !ib. ii. Strab. lib. vi.) 
Dr. Gillies. 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. lxiii 

pular instruction, or organ of religious homage and 
supplication, than verse : the conclusion follows that 
there were both poets anterior to the age of Homer,* 
and that these poets were also mythologists. 

Pausanias mentions Olen of Lycia ; who, he says, 
composed very ancient hymns ;■ and who in his hymn 
to Lucina, makes her the mother of Love : and he 
names Pamphus and Orpheus, as succeeding OJen, 
and as also composing hymns to the mythological 
Love. 

The doubt entertained by Aristotle and Cicero 
of the personal existence of Orpheus, neither affects 
the antiquity of the name, nor of that system of 
theology which bears the title of Orphic. The re- 
lics now extant under that name have, indeed, been 
suspected as the forgeries of Onomacritus, the sooth- 
sayer, who produced the hymns to the people of 
Athens : but Gesner is of opinion that he only altered 
the dialect of genuine Orphic remains, on which 
he ingrafted his own additions. The fragments which 
have come down to us appear certainly from internal 
evidence to contain a theology more ancient than that 
of Hesiod and Homer ; for the nearer it approaches 

* " The Trcezenian histories," observes iElian, book xi. ch. 2/' 
" relate that the poems of Oraebantius, a native of Trcezene, 
were in existence before Homer ; and I know they affirm that 
Dares the Phrygian, whose Iliad is even now extant, lived 
before Homer's time. Melisander, the Milesian, likewise, com- 
posed the battle of the Lapithae and the Centaurs." 



Ixiv DISSERTATION ON 

in any of its parts to the religious system of the 
^Egyptians, the stronger is the presumptive testimony 
of its antiquity. 

# The ^Egyptians held that the world was produced 
from Chaos, or Water. They worshipped the Sun, 
as Osiris, Hammon, and Horus; the Moon, as Isis; 
the Cabiri or Planets, as symbols of invisible divi- 
nities. They had two systems of worship ; the one 
p * exoteric or popular, the other esoteric or mystical. 

A The adoration of the celestial bodies was literal with 

S the people, and emblematical with the priesthood. 

They supposed emanations from divinity to be re- 
sident in the parts of nature ; and thus that the sun, 
moon, and stars, and the other bodies of the uni- 
verse, were animated with a divine spirit or virtue ; or 
retained portions of a divine essence from good demons 
or genii, who dwelt in them : these daemons had been 
inclosed in the bodies of virtuous men ; and having 
left them, passed into the stars and planets, which 
were consequently worshipped as gods. Hence pro- 
bably the legend of Hesiod, who supposes the spirits 
of men in the golden age to become holy daemons ; 
though these daemons are not sent to the stars, but 
hover round the earth and keep watch over the actions 
of humankind. 



* Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophise, torn. i. Homer re- 
presents father Oceanus as the generator of all things : and the 
Chaos of Hesiod is merely the watery element. 



THE MYTHOLOGY OP HESIOU. lxV 

Jablonski, in his Pantheon iEgyptiorum, considers 
this stellar theology as resolvable into an astronomical 
and Niliacal idolatry. The terrestrial Osiris is the 
Nile: the celestial Osiris the Sun, in his zodiacal 
progress through the signs that preside over the sea- 
sons. Anion, Jupiter, designates the Sun in the 
constellation of Aries. In the vernal equinox he is 
Hercules, in the summer solstice Horus or Apollo, 
in the winter solstice Harpocrates. Serapis was the 
Nile in its period of fertilization, or the autumnal 
Sun of the lower hemisphere. Isis was the moon, 
the mother of multiform nature; the same also as 
Neitha or Minerva, and the causer of the Nile's in- 
undations. Tithrambo, Brimo, or Hecate, was Isis 
incensed, or the maleficent moon. Bubastis, Diana, 
or Latona, was the titular symbol of the New Moon, 
and Buto or Latona of the full. The Cabiri, or 
Seven Planets, were worshipped as appendants of 
the greater gods ; thus the planet Venus was the star 
of Isis, and the planet Jupiter the star of Osiris. 
The dog-headed Anubis, or Mercury, was the ce- 
lestial horizon, the guard of the Sun's gate, and the 
follower of Isis or the Moon. The bull Apis was 
a living symbol of the Nile ; but was supposed to 
have been generated in a heifer by the transmission 
of celestial fire from the Moon ; and was sacred both 
to that planet and to the Sun. A living goat was 
the symbol of Mendes or Pan ; the generative prin- 
ciple of all nature. These animal types were multi* 



lxvi DISSERTATION ON 

plied ; thus a lion figured the Sun ; a cow, Isis and 
Venus ; and a hawk, Osiris. Stones were also made 
typical. An obelisk represented the Sun ; and seven 
columns, such as Pausanias saw in Laconia, the 
Planets. They worshipped also Night, the supposed 
creative principle of all things, as Athor, Venus,* 
or Juno ; and Pthas, the Vulcan as well as Minerva 
of the Grecians; the masculo-feminine cause and 
soul of the world ; a pervading infinite spirit, or sub- 
tile ethereal fire, superior to the solar and planetary 
orbs ; from which emanated terrestrial souls, and to 
which they returned. This system may very well be 
reconciled with the received theology ; as it is not at 
all improbable that the subtile and scientific ^Egyp- 
tians should have refined upon their original emblems, 
by connecting with them a secondary astronomical sig- 
nification. In the explication of certain terms, and the 
identity and nature of many of the deities, the " ^Egyp- 
tian Pantheon" agrees with the " New Analysis." 

Proclus (in Timaeum, book i.) mentions a statue 
of Neitha or Minerva in a temple at Sais, in iEgypt, 
inscribed on the base with hieroglyphical characters 
to this effect : "I am whatever things are, whatever 
shall be, and whatever have been. None have lifted 
up my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth 

* So Orpheus : 

Night, source of all things, whom we Venus name. 

Night and Chaos, or the aqueous mass, seem reciprocally con- 
sidered as the source of nature. 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. lxvii 

is the Sun." Notwithstanding the mixed planetary 
worship, the Sun was considered by the ^Egyptians 
as the king and architect of the universe : who under 
the name of Osiris comprehended in himself the 
power and efficacy of all the other material gods. 
Consistent with this is the Orphic fragment : 

Hear me thou ! for ever whirling round the rolling heavens on high 
Thy far-travelling orb of splendour midst the whirlpools of the sky : 
Hear, effulgent Jove and Bacchus ! father both of earth and sea ! 
Sun all-various! golden-beaming! all things teeming out of thee ! 

In another passage Orpheus identifies with the sun 
the different deities. 

One Jove and Pluto ; Bacchus, and the Sun ; 
One God alike in all, and all are one. 

The cosmogonists of JEgypt represented the De- 
miurgus or Universal Maker, in a human form, send- 
ing forth from his mouth an egg ; which egg was the 
world. They called him Kneph ; who was the same 
as Pthas, the essential pervading energy. Chaos is 
described by Orpheus, in the manner of Ovid, as 
an immense, self-existent, heterogeneous mass; nei- 
ther luminous nor tenebrous ; which in the lapse of 
ages generated an egg ; and from this egg was pro- 
duced a masculo-feminine principle, which disposed 
the elements, and created the forms of nature. A 
primaeval water or Chaos, and a mundane egg, are 
found also in the mythology of India. 

In the cosmogonic system of iEgypt the world was 
Deity, and its parts other gods ; a doctrine equivalent 

e2 



lxviii DISSERTATION ON 






to the to 7rav of the Stoics ; the inherent divinity of 
the universe; which Lucan seems to intend in the 
sentiment of Cato : 

Deus est quodcunque vides : quocunque moveris. 
Whatever we see, where'er we move, is God. 

This system is unfolded in the Orphic hymns : 

Jove is the breath of all : the force of quenchless flame : 

The root of ocean Jove : the sun and moon the same : 

Jove is the king, the sire, whence generation sprang : 

One strength, one Daemon, great, on whom all beings hang: 

His regal body grasps the vast material round : 

There fire, earth, air, and wave, and day and night, are found. 

The same physico-theology appears in the Orphean 
verses, 

I swear by those, the generating powers, 
Whence sprang the gods that have eternal being ; 
Fire, Water, Earth, and Heaven, the Moon and Sun, 
Great Love effulgent, and the sable Night ! 

and in another fragment, preserved by Eusebius : 
(Praeparat. Evang. iii. 9.) 

Fire, water, earth, and ether, night and day, 
Metis, first sire, and all-delighting Love. 

Metis is Minerva or Vulcan, the mind of the universe 
already noticed. 

From a general view of the iEgyptian and Orphic 
theogonies, they would appear to consist in an 
atheistic materialism ; for although they acknowledge 
a certain divine, or active, principle pervading and 
animating passive matter, nothing can be inferred 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. Ix'lX 

from this, superior to a physical operative energy. 
Jablonski indeed contends that, exclusive of the 
worship of the signs of the zodiac, and the solar and 
lunar phenomena, the more ancient ^Egyptians re- 
cognized an intelligent power, or infinite Eternal Mind, 
on whose wisdom the operations of the sensible or 
visible divinities depended. But it may be doubted 
whether this controlling intelligence were any thing 
different from the before described emanation of the 
supposed ethereal spirit of holy daemons, or deified 
men. 

Hesiod begins his poem on the generation of the 
gods with certain cosmogonical principles. Chaos 
first exists ; then Earth ; and thirdly Love. Erebus 
and Night spring from Chaos, and generate Ether 
and Day; and Earth produces Heaven. But we 
search in vain through the rest of the work for the 
subtile intelligence of the Orphic philosophy. It has 
been attempted, indeed, to reduce the whole into 
a consistent scheme of theogonic physiology, by 
allegorizing the supernatural battles into volcanic 
eruptions, hurricanes, and earthquakes ; but much 
would still remain incapable of being wrested to a 
physical sense. On certain crude principles of cos- 
mogonical tradition, and lineal generations of gods, 
intermingled with the generation of the world, the 
theogonist has ingrafted ancient legendary histories, 
and poetical and moral allegories. The historical 
mythology is alone significant \ for every thing re- 



1XX DISSERTATION ON 

specting the nature of the gods was in Hesiod's time 
perverted and misunderstood. The bard was no 
longer clothed in the robe of the hierophant. 

Very different hypotheses have been framed to ex- 
plain the Greek polytheism. They have failed because 
they were hypotheses. When the Abbe Banier * de- 
tects the real characters of profane history in the 
gods of the Pantheon ; and when De Gebelin f sees 
in them only emblematical shadows, personifying the 
successive inventions of the sciences and arts, we are 
reminded of the observation of Dr. Reid ; (Essays on 
the Intellectual Powers of Man :) " that there never 
was an hypothesis invented by an ingenious man, 
which although destitute of direct evidence, did not 
serve to account for a variety of phenomena, and 
had not therefore an indirect evidence in its favour." 
Even the Alchemists have laid claim to the heathen 
mythology ; the pagan stories have been analysed into 
chemical arcana: the golden fleece becomes a recipe 
for the discovery of the philosopher's stone inscribed 
on a ram's-skin, and Medea restores her father to life 
by means of the grand elixir. % 

But it were an unreasonable scepticism to argue 
from these visionary theories, that the ancient fabu- 
lous philosophy is a mass of inscrutable and unmean- 
ing superstition. The affinity between the different 

* La Mythologie, ou la Fable expliquee par THistoire. 
f Monde Primitif. 
" X Wotton's Reflections on ancient and modern Learning. 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. lxxi 

systems of paganism rests on irrefutable proof.* This 
affinity points to a common origin. The light of 
history directs us to iEgypt. The astronomical 
genius of that nation led them to symbolize their 
idols by the celestial signs. These idols were the 
deified memories of men. As to their individuality, 
we are assisted by certain resemblances in heathen 
theology to Mosaic scripture. This parallel may 
have been urged too closely and too fancifully ; as by 
Huet, in his " Demonstratio Evangelica : " who 
affirms that all the deities of the ^Egyptians, Indians, 
Americans, Greeks, and Italians, are only Moses in 
disguise; and by Theophilus Gale, in his " Court 
of the Gentiles ; " who draws a parallel between the 
god Pan, and the Messias, Abel, and Israel ; and 
who derives not only both the mythic or fabulous, 
and the physical theology of the heathens, but all 
human letters and sciences from the Hebrew lan- 
guage and scriptures, and the philosophies of 
Joseph, Moses, and Solomon. Mistakes may have 
arisen from trusting too much to a specious analogy ; 
as where Tubal-cain, the artificer of brass and iron, 
is identified with Vulcan, f The conjectures of 

* See Sir William Jones's Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, 
Italy, and India. 

f The working of metals was not among the ancient attributes 
of Vulcan : but a diversity of character or attributes is not 
always an objection. Each god had not only a twofold nature, 
celestial, and human or heroical, but his history and qualities 



hodl DISSERTATION ON 

Hebraic etymologists, also, as of Bochart, in the 
Phaleg and Canaan of his Geographia sacra, must 

changed with change of place. Thus Hercules was the Sun ; he 
was also a vagabond hero ; but he may have been one person in 
Greece, and another in Phoenicia. Gerard Vossius, in his 
treatise " de Origine et Progressu Idolatriae," may therefore be 
right in his conjecture, that among the Phoenicians both Joshua 
and Samson were commemorated in the Tyrian Hercules. Bacchus 
was the Sun, and an Indian conqueror. His history also assi- 
milates with that of Noah. He was likewise in all probability 
Caphtor, the grandson of Ham ; the great ./Egyptian warrior who 
dispossessed the Avim of that part of the land of Canaan, after- 
wards called Philistia. (See Priestley's Lectures on History, i. 5.) 
But it is natural that the Phoenicians, who visited Greece when 
the memory of Moses was still vivid among the Canaanites, 
should have brought with them miraculous reports of the Jewish 
lawgiver, which were added to the history of Bacchus. Bacchus 
is called by Orpheus, Mio-vt ; and by Plutarch (de Iside et Osiride) 
Palsestinus. Bacchus was exposed in an ark upon a river : a 
double coincidence with Noah and Moses, which is exactly in the 
spirit of the old mythologists. Nonnus, in his Dionysiacs, men- 
tions the flight of Bacchus to the red sea, and his battles with 
the Princes of Arabia ; and relates that he touched the rivers 
Orontes and Hydaspes with his thyrsus, and that the rivers dried 
up, and he passed through dry-shod. The Indians are in dark- 
ness, while the Bacchic army are in light. The ivy-rod of Bac- 
chus is thrown on the ground, and creeps to and fro like a live 
serpent. Snakes twist themselves about the hair and limbs of 
Bacchus ; which may be a shadow of the fiery serpents in the 
wilderness. The host of Bacchus, like the multitude led by 
Moses, is accompanied by women. One of the Bacchae touches 
a rock, and water gushes out; -at another time wine and honey; 






THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. Ixxiii 

be acknowledged to be often vague and inconclusive. 
But so plain are the general traces of corrupted 
scripture-history, that Celsus, in his books against 
the Christians, attacks the biblical records as pla- 
giarisms from the pagan mythology ; and asserts that 
Paradise is borrowed from the gardens of Alcinous, 
and the flood of Noah from that of Deucalion ; which 
Origen refutes by the greater antiquity of the Jewish 
traditions. 

It is not to be supposed that they, who trace these 
parallels of mythology with scripture, mean that 
scripture was its immediate source : as the French 
Encyclopaedists seem to think, when they ridicule the 
idea of the Grecian poets having deduced their fables 
from the Mosaic books, of which they knew nothing. 
The religious separation of the Jews renders it im- 
probable, that even the intellectual philosophy of the 
Greek sages, as Thales and Pythagoras, should have 
been indebted for the idea of pure incorporeal deity 
to the sacred oracles: though Dr. Anderson con- 
ceives it probable that " the Mosaic scriptures, and 
other prophetical writings under the Jewish dispen- 
sation, could not be unknown to the priests of iEgypt, 
Chaldsea, and other adjacent countries." History of 
Philosophy, p. 88. 

But the improbability is greatly increased with re- 

and the rivers run with milk. These circumstances are very re- 
markable. See Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, ch. v. Nonnus, Dio- 
nysiacs. 

f 



Lxxiv 



DISSERTATION ON 



spect to the mythological philosophy ; nor is it cre- 
dible that the circumstances of pagan story, on the 
supposition of their representing the same events as 
those recorded in the book of Genesis, should have 
been transferred immediately from the volume of 
Moses by poets or philosophers into the popular re- 
ligion. Nations do not borrow vast systems of theo- 
logy from poets or even from priests. Gale does not 
suppose that priests or bards imported the Hebrew 
accounts from the sacred writings; but that they were 
leamr, through international communication with the 
Jews, by the Phoenicians ; who, in their various nau- 
tical enterprizes, carried them to distant countries. 

But the temple of heathen mythology rests its 
pillars in the two hemispheres, and overshadows 
climes unvisited by the navigators of Phoenicia. Its 
basis must, apparently, be sought without the circle 
of Jewish report and scripture, in ancient gentile tra- 
dition. Stillingfleet convincingly argues, that, as- 
suming the descent of mankind from the posterity of 
Noah, the obliteration and extinction of all remnants 
of oral history concerning the ancient world is utterly 
inconceivable. He proceeds to show that such frag- 
ments were, in fact, so preserved in many nations 
after the dispersion ; that they were appropriated by 
the Phoenicians, Greeks, Italians, and others to their 
respective countries; and that portions of Noah's 
memory, in particular, were retained in many fables 
under Saturn, Janus, Prometheus, and Bacchus. 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. 1XXV 

Similar to this is the outline of the Analytic System ; 
in which, however, the daemon-worship of the patri- 
archs of mankind is connected with the arkite and 
ophite idolatry under the types of the sun and moon. 
The affinities in the pagan sister-mythologies are ex- 
plained by the general dissemination of these idola- 
trous mysteries, and the traditions which they were 
designed to commemorate, through the dispersion of 
a peculiar people in the early ages ; migrating from a 
central point, and spreading through the extremest 
regions of the east and west. 

" This wonderful people were the descendants of 
Chus ; and called Cuthites and Cuseans. They stood 
their ground at the general migration of families, but 
were at last scattered over the face of the earth. They 
were the first apostates from the truth, yet great in 
worldly wisdom. They introduced, wherever they 
came, many useful arts, and were looked up to as a 
superior order of beings. They were joined in their 
expeditions by other nations ; especially by the col- 
lateral branches of their family ; the Mizraim, Caph- 
torim, and the sons of Canaan. These were all of 
the line of Ham, who was held by his posterity in 
the highest veneration. They called him Amon ; and 
having in process of time raised him to a divinity, 
they worshipped him as the Sun ; and from this wor- 
ship they were called Amonians. Under this deno- 
mination are included all of this family ; whether they 
were Egyptians or Syrians, of Phcenicia or of Ca- 



lxXVi MYTHOLOGY OF HESIOD. 

naan. They were a people who carefully preserved 
memorials of their ancestors, and of those great events 
which had preceded their dispersion. These were de- 
cribed in hieroglyphics on pillars and obelisks. 

" The deity whom they originally worshipped was 
the Sun; but they soon conferred his titles upon 
some other of their ancestors ; whence arose a mixed 
worship. Chus was one of these; and the idolatry 
began among his sons. The same was practised by 
the ^Egyptians; but this nation made many subtile 
distinctions; and supposing that there were certain 
emanations of divinity, they affected to particularize 
each by some title, and to worship the deity by his 
attributes. This gave rise to a multiplicity of gods. 
The Grecians, who received their religion from 
iEgypt and the East, misapplied the terms which 
they had received, and made a god out of every title." 
Preface to the Analysis of Ancient Mythology. 



%\)t Woits anti Baps, 



THE WORKS AND DAYS. 



€fje 9trsument* 

THE poem comprehends the general oeconomy of industry and 
morals. In the first division of the subject, the state of the 
world, past and present, is described ; for the purpose of ex- 
emplifying the condition of human nature : which entails on 
man the necessity of exertion to preserve the goods of life ; 
and leaves him no alternative but honest industry or unjust 
violence ; of which the good and evil consequences are re- 
spectively illustrated. Two Strifes are said to have been sent 
into the world, the one promoting dissension, the other emu- 
lation. Perses is exhorted to abjure the former and embrace 
the latter ; and an apposite allusion is made to the circum- 
stance of his litigiously disputing the patrimonial estate, of 
which, through the corruption of the judges, he obtained the 
larger porportion. The judges are rebuked, and cheap con- 
tentment is apostrophized as the true secret of happiness. 
Such is stated to have been the original sense of mankind 
before the necessity of labour existed. The origin of labour 
is deduced from the resentment of Jupiter against Prometheus ; 
which resentment led to the formation of Pandora : or 
Woman : who is described with her attributes, and is repre- 
sented as bringing with her into the world a casket of diseases. 
The degeneracy of man is then traced through successive ages. 
The three first ages are severally distinguished as the golden, 
the silver, and the brazen. The fourth has no metallic dis- 
tinction, but is described as the heroic age, and as embracing 



REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

the aera of the Trojan war. The fifth is styled the iron age, 
and, according to the Poet, is that in which he lives. The 
general corruption of mankind in this age is detailed, and 
Modesty and Justice are represented taking their flight to hea- 
ven. A pointed allusion to the corrupt administration of the 
laws, in his own particular instance, is introduced in a fable, 
typical of oppression. Justice is described as invisibly fol- 
lowing those who violate her decrees with avenging power, and 
as lamenting in their streets the wickedness of a corrupted 
people. The temporal blessings of an upright nation are con- 
trasted with the temporal evils which a wicked nation draws 
down from an angry Providence. Holy Daemons are repre- 
sented as hovering about the earth, and keeping watch over 
the actions of men. Justice is again introduced, carrying her 
complaints to the feet of Jupiter, and obtaining that the crimes 
of rulers be visited on their people. A pathetic appeal is then 
made to these rulers in their judicial capacity, urging them to 
renounce injustice. After some further exhortations to virtue 
and industry, and a number of unconnected precepts, the 
Poet enters on the Georgical part of his subject : which 
contains the prognostics of the seasons of agricultural labour, 
and rules appertaining to wood-felling, carpentry, ploughing, 
sowing, reaping, threshing, vine-dressing, and the vintage. 
. This division of the subject includes a description of winter 
and of a repast in summer. He then treats of navigation : 
and concludes with some desultory precepts of religion, moral 
decorum, and superstition : and lastly, with a specification of 
Days : which, are divided into holy, auspicious, and inauspi- 
cious : mixed and intermediary : or such as are entitled to no 
remarkable observance. 



WORKS, 



i. 

COME, Muses ! ye, that from Pieria raise 

The song of glory, sing your father's praise. 

By Jove's high will th' unknown and known of fame 

Exist, the nameless and the fair of name. 

"lis He with ease the bowed feeble rears, 

And casts the mighty from their highest spheres : 

The bowedfeeble rears.'] This proem was wanting in the leaden- 
sheeted copy, seen by Pausanias in Bceotia. The affinity with 
scriptural language is remarkable. " The Lord maketh poor 
and maketh rich : he bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up 
the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dung- 
hill to set him among princes." Samuel v. 1, ch. 2. " God is the 
judge : he putteth down one, and setteth up another. The 
Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up them that be bowed 
down. The Lord lifteth up the meek : he casteth the wicked 
down to the ground." Psalms 75, 145, 147. I was originally 
led to suspect that this introduction had been ingrafted on the 
poem by one of the Alexandrian Jews ; who were addicted to 
this kind of imposture ; but it is probably more ancient than the 
establishment of the Jewish colony at Alexandria, under the 
Ptolemies. There is nothing conclusive to be drawn from coinci- 
dences of this sort between ancient writings. The first princi- 



6 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

With ease of human grandeur shrouds the ray : 
With ease on abject darkness pours the day : 
Straightens the crooked : grinds to dust the proud ; 
Thunderer on high, whose dwelling is the cloud. 
Now bend thine eyes from heaven : behold and hear : 
Rule thou the laws in righteousness and fear : 
While I to Perses' heart would fain convey 
The truths of knowledge which inspire my lay. 

pies of morality, implanted in the human heart by its author, 
have in all ages been the same : and Socrates and Confucius 
might be found to agree, surely without any suspicion of imi- 
tation. Many passages of Hesiod may be paralleled with 
verses in the Psalms and Proverbs : and in the proem under 
consideration, there seem no grounds for the conjecture of 
plagiarism from views of the vicissitudes of human condition, 
and the ordinations of a ruling providence which are continually 
passing before our eyes, and which must have struck the reason- 
ing and serious part of mankind in all ages. Horace has a si- 
milar passage : b. i. od. 34. 

The God by sudden turns of fate 
Can change the lowest with the loftiest state : 
Eclipse of glory the diminished ray, 

And lift obscurity to day. 

Le Clerc conjectures this exordium to be the addition of one 
of the rhapsodists : of whom Pindar says, Nem. Od. 2. 

Th' Homeric bards, who wont to frame 
A motley-woven verse, 
Ere they the song rehearse, 
;in from Jove, and prelude with his name. 



WORKS. 7 

Two Strifes on earth of soul divided rove : 
The wise will this condemn and that approve : 
Accursed the one spreads misery from afar, 
And stirs up discord and pernicious war : 
Men love not this : yet heaven-enforced maintain 
The strife abhorr'd, but still abhorr'd in vain. 
The other elder rose from darksome night : 
The God high-throned, who dwells in ether's light, 
Fix'd deep in earth, and centred midst mankind 
This better strife, which fires the slothful mind. 
The needy idler sees the rich, and hastes 
Himself to guide the plough, and plant the wastes : 
Ordering his household : thus the neighbour's eyes 
Mark emulous the wealthy neighbour rise : 
Beneficent this strife's incensing zeal : 
The potters angry turn the forming wheel : 
Smiths beat their anvils ; almsmen zealous throng, 
And minstrels kindle with the minstrel's song. 

The other elder rose.] Night is meant to be the mother of both 
the Strifes. Guietus remarks that evtyovn is a term for night : 
from £t<f>pov£fe>, to be wise. She was the mother of wise designs, 
because favourable to meditation : the mother of good, therefore, 
as well as of evil. The good Strife is made the elder, because 
the evil one arose in the later and degenerate ages of mankind. 

Almsmen zealous throng,] The proximity of the beggar to the 
bard might in a modern writer convey a satirical inuendo, of 



8 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Oh Perses ! thou within thy secret breast 
Repose the maxims by my care imprest ; 
Nor ever let that evil-joying strife 
Have power to wean thee from the toils of life ; 
The whilst thy prying eyes the forum draws, 
Thine ears the process, and the din of laws. 
Small care be his of wrangling and debate 
For whose ungather'd food the garners wait ; 
Who wants within the summer's plenty stored, 
Earth's kindly fruits, and Ceres' yearly hoard. 
With these replenish'd, at the brawling bar 
For others' wealth go instigate the war. 
But this thou mays't no more : let justice guide, 
Best boon of heaven, and future strife decide. 
Not so we shared the patrimonial land 
When greedy pillage fill'd thy grasping hand : 

which Hesiod cannot be suspected. The bard, as is evident from 
Homer's Odyssey, enjoyed a sort of conventional hospitality, 
bestowed with reverence and affection. It should seem, how- 
ever, from this passage that the asker of alms was not regarded 
in the light of a common mendicant with us. It was a popular 
superstition that the gods often assumed similar characters for 
the purpose of trying the benevolence of men. A noble incen- 
tive to charity, which indicates the hospitable character of a 
semi-barbarous age. 

The patrimonial.,land.~\ The manner of inheritance in ancient 
Greece was that of gavelkind : the sons dividing the patrimony 






WORKS. y 

The bribe-devouring Judges lull'd by thee 
The sentence gave and stamp'd the false decree : 
Oh fools ! who know not in their selfish soul 
How far the half is better than the whole : 
The good which asphodel and mallows yield, 
The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field ! 

in equal portions. When there were children by a concubine, 
they also received a certain proportion. This is illustrated by a 
passage in the 14th book of the Odyssey : 

An humbler mate, 
His purchased concubine, gave birth to me : 

His illustrious sons among themselves 

Portion'd his goods by lot : to me indeed 
They gave a dwelling, and but little more. 

Cowper. 
The good which asphodel and mallozos yield.'] A similar senti- 
ment occurs in the Proverbs : " Better is a dinner of herbs 
where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." Ch. 15. 
v. 17. 

Plutarch in the " Banquet of the Seven Sages," observes, 
that " the herb mallows is good for food, as is the sweet stalk of 
the asphodel or daffodil." These plants were often used by 
metonymy for a frugal table. Homer (Odyssey 24.) places the 
shades of the blessed in meadows of asphodel, because they 
were supposed to be restored to the state of primitive innocence, 
when men were contented with the simple and spontaneous ali- 
ment of the ground. Perhaps the Greeks had this allusion 
in their custom of planting the asphodel in the cemeteries, 
and also burying it with the bodies of the dead. It appears 
from Pliny, b. xxii. c. 22. that Hesiod had treated of the aspho- 









10 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The food of man in deep concealment lies : 
The angry gods have hid it from our eyes. 
Else had one day bestow'd sufficient cheer, 
And, though inactive, fed thee through the year. 
Then might thy hand have laid the rudder by, 
In blackening smoke for ever hung on high ; 

del in some other work : as he is said to have spoken of it as a 

native of the woods. 

The food of man in deep concealment lies.] The meaning of 

this passage resembles that of the passage in Virgil's first 

Georgic : 

The sire of gods and men with hard decrees 

Forbade our plenty to be bought with ease. 

Dryden. 

Have laid the rudder by.~\ It seems the vice of commentators 
to refine with needless subtleties on plain passages. Le Clerc 
explains this to mean that " in one day's fishing you might have 
caught such an abundance of fish, as to allow of the rudder being 
laid by for a long interval." The common sense of the passage, 
however, is that, were the former state of existence renewed, 
the rudder, which it was customary after a voyage to hang up in 
the smoke, might remain there for ever. You needed not have 
crossed the sea for merchandise. The custom of suspending the 
helms of ships in chimneys, to preserve them from decay, is ad- 
verted to again among the nautical precepts. 

The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend. 

Virgil recommends the same process with respect to the tim 
hewn for the plough : Georg. 1. 

Hung where the chimney's curling fumes arise, 
The searching smoke the hardened timber dries. 



- 



WORKS. 1 1 

Then had the labouring ox foregone the soil, 

And patient mules had found reprieve from toil. 

But Jove conceal'd our food : incensed at heart, 

Since mock'd by wise Prometheus' wily art. 

Sore ills to man devised the heavenly Sire, 

And hid the shining element of fire. 

Prometheus then, benevolent of soul, 

In hollow reed the spark recovering stole ; 

Cheering to man ; and mock'd the god, whose gaze 

Serene rejoices in the lightning's blaze. 

" Oh son of Japhet ! " with indignant heart, 

Spake the Cloud-gatherer : "oh, unmatch'd in art ! 

Exultest thou in this the flame retrieved, 

And dost thou triumph in the god deceived ? 

Mock'd by wise Prometheus^] The original deception which 
provoked the wrath of Jupiter was the sacrifice of bones men- 
tioned in the Theogony. 

It would appear extraordinary that the crime of Prometheus, 
who was a god, should be visited on man. This injustice be- 
trays the real character of Prometheus; that he was a deified 
mortal. If Prometheus, the maker of man according to Ovid, 
and his divine benefactor according to Hesiod. be in reality 
Noah, as many circumstances concur to prove, the concealment 
of fire by Jupiter might be a type of the darkness and dreariness 
of nature during the interval of the deluge ; and the recovery of 
the flame might signify the renovation of light and fertility and 
the restitution of the arts of life. 



12 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

But thou, with the posterity of man, 

Shalt rue the fraud whence mightier ills began : 

I will send evil for thy stealthy fire, 

An ill which all shall love, and all desire. 

The Sire who rules the earth and sways the pole 
Had said, and laughter fill'd his secret soul : 
He bade famed Vulcan with the speed of thought 
Mould plastic clay with tempering waters wrought : 
Inform with voice of man the murmuring tongue ; 
The limbs with man's elastic vigour strung ; 



An ill which all shall love.] In the scholia of Olympiodoru 1 
on Plato, Pandora is allegorized into the irrational soul or 
sensuality : as opposed to intellect. By Heinsius she is sup- 
posed to be Fortune. But there never was less occasion for 
straining after philosophical mysteries. Hesiod asserts in plain 
terms, that Pandora is the mother of woman; he tells us she 
brought with her a casket of diseases ; and that through her the 
state of man became a state of labour, and his longevity was 
abridged. It is an ancient Asiatic legend ; and Pandora is plainly 
the Eve of Mosaic history. How this primitive tradition came to 
be connected with that of the deluge is easily explained. " Time 
with the ancients," observes Mr. Bryant, " commenced at the 
deluge ; all their traditions and genealogies terminated here. The 
birth of mankind went with them no higher than this epocha." 
We see here a confusion of events, of periods, and of charac- 
ters. The fall of man to a condition of labour, disease, and 
death is made subsequent to the flood ; because the great father 
of the post-diluvian world was regarded as the original father off 
mankind. 



, 



WORKS. 1 3 

The aspect fair as goddesses above, 

A virgin's likeness with the brows of love. 

He bade Minerva teach the skill, that sheds 

A thousand colours in the gliding threads : 

Bade lovely Venus breathe around her face 

The charm of air, the witchery of grace : 

Infuse corroding pangs of keen desire, 

And cares that trick the form with prank'd attire : 

Bade Hermes last implant the craft refined 

Of thievish manners and a shameless mind. 

He gives command ; th' inferior powers obey : 
The crippled artist moulds the temper'd clay : 
By Jove's design a maid's coy image rose : 
The zone, the dress, Minerva's hands dispose : 
Adored Persuasion, and the Graces young, 
With chains of gold her shapely person hung : 



The zone, the dress.'] This office is probably assigned to Pallas, 
as the inventress and patroness of weaving and embroidery, and 
works in wool. 

With chains of gold.] Opuou-, rendered by the interpreter 
monilia, are not merely necklaces, but chains for any part of the 
person : as the arms and ankles. Ornaments of gold, and par- 
ticularly chains, belong to the costume of very high antiquity. 

" Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul : who clothed you 
in scarlet with other delights : who put on ornaments of' gold 
upon your apparel. Samuel b. ii. ch. 1. v. 24. 

" And she took sandals upon her feet, and put about her her 



14? KEMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Round her smooth brow the beauteous-tressed Hours 
A garland twined of spring's purpureal flowers : 
The whole, Minerva with adjusting art 
Forms to her shape and fits to every part. 
Last by the counsels of deep-thundering Jove, 
The Argicide, his herald from above, 

bracelets, and her chains, and her rings, and her ear-rings, and 
all her ornaments, and decked herself bravely, to allure the eyes 
of all men that should see her." Judith ch. x. v. 4. 

The beauteous-tressed Hours^] The Hours, according to Homer, 
made the toilette of Venus : 

The smooth strong gust of Zephyr wafted her 
Through billows of the many-waving sea 
In the soft foam : the Hours, whose locks are bound 
With gold, received her blithely, and enrobed 
With heavenly vestments : her immortal head 
They wreathed with golden fillet, beautiful, 
And aptly framed : her perforated ears 
They hung with jewels of the mountain-brass 
And precious gold : her tender neck, and breast 
Of dazzling white, they deck'd with chains of gold, 
Such as the Hours wear braided with their locks. 

Hymn to Venus. 

His herald from above.] The first edition had " winged herald ;" 
but the wings of Mercury are the additions of later mythologists. 
Homer, in the Odyssey, speaks only of 

The sandals fair, 
Golden, and undecay'd, that waft him o'er 
The sea, and o'er th' immeasurable earth 
With the swift-breathing wind : 

there is no mention of the sandals being winged. They seem to 



WORKS. 15 

Adds thievish manners, adds insidious lies, 
And prattled speech of sprightly railleries : 
Then by the wise interpreter of heaven 
The name Pandora to the maid was given : 
Since all in heaven conferr'd their gifts to charm, 
For man's inventive race, this beauteous harm. 

When now the Sire had form'd this mischief fair, 
He bade heaven's messenger convey through air 
To Epimetheus' hands th' inextricable snare : 
Nor he recalTd within his heedless thought 
The warning lesson by Prometheus taught : 
That he disclaim each present from the skies, 
And straight restore, lest ill to man arise : 
But he received ; and conscious knew too late 
Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate. 

On earth of yore the sons of men abode, 
From evil free and labour's galling load : 
Free from diseases that with racking rage 
Precipitate the pale decline of age. 
Now swift the days of manhood haste away, 
And misery's pressure turns the temples gray. 

have possessed a supernatural power of velocity, like the seven- 
leagued boots, or the shoes of swiftness, in the Tales of the 
Giants. 



16 



REMAINS OF HESIOD. 



The woman's hands an ample casket bear ; 

She lifts the lid ; she scatters ills in air. 

Within th' unbroken vase Hope sole remained, 

Beneath the vessel's rim from flight detained : 

The maid, by counsels of cloud-gathering Jove, 

The coffer seal'd and dropp'd the lid above. 

Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurl'd, 

And woes innumerous roam'd the breathing world : 

With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea, 

Diseases haunt our frail humanity : 

Through noon, through night on casual wing they 

glide, 
Silent, a voice the Power all-wise denied. 

Th J unbroken vase.] appnxroio-i bopcio-i. Seleucus, an ancient 
critic, quoted by Proclus, proposed nifoto-i : as if the casket in 
which Hope dwelt, might not literally be called her house. 
Heinsius supposes an allusion to the chamber of a virgin. After 
this, who would expect that ^pouri means nothing more than a 

chest ? 

EXao-a KS^ftvm $o t uoov 

Ea-Sijrity Hoe-fxov t. EURIPIDES. AlCESTIS. 158. 

taking from her cedar coffers 

Vestures and jewels. 

On casual wing they glide.] Perhaps Milton had Hesiod in his 
«ye, in the speech of Satan to Sin : Par. Lost, b. ii. line 840. 

Thou and Death 
Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen 
Wing silently the buxom air. 






•*-»i->^. 



WORKS. 1 / 

Thus mayst thou not elude th' omniscient mind : 
Now if thy thoughts be to my speech inclin'd, 
I in brief phrase would other lore impart 
Wisely and well : thou, grave it on thy heart. 

When gods alike and mortals rose to birth, 
A golden race th' immortals form'd on earth 
Of many-Ian guaged men : they lived of old 
When Saturn reign'd in heaven, an age of gold. 
Like gods they lived, with calm untroubled mind ; 
Free from the toils and anguish of our kind : 
Nor e'er decrepid age mishaped their frame, 
The hand's, the foot's proportions still the same. 
Strangers to ill, their lives in feasts flow'd by : -v 
Wealthy in flocks ; dear to the blest on high : v. 

Dying they sank in sleep, nor seem'd to die. ) 

Theirs was each good ; the life-sustaining soil 
Yielded its copious fruits, unbribed by toil : 

Wealthy in Jiocks.] Grsevius has misled all the editors by 
arguing that f*»x« are, in this place, fruits of any trees; as 
a-rbutes, figs, nuts ; and not flocks : but his arguments respect- 
ing the food of primitive mankind are drawn from the concep- 
tions of modem poets ; such as Lucretius and Ovid. The tra- 
ditionary age described by Hesiod was a shepherd age. Flocks 
are the most ancient symbol of prosperity, and are often syno- 
nymous with riches and dominion. 

C 



18 REMAINS OF HKSIOD. 

They with abundant goods midst quiet lands 
All willing shared the gatherings of their hands. 
When earth's dark womb had closed this race 
around, 
High Jove as daemons raised them from the ground. 

High Jove as demons raised them from the ground.] In the 
account of this age we have a just history of the rise of idolatry ; 
when deified men had first divine honours paid to them; and we 
may be assured of the family in which it began ; as what was 
termed. Crusean, the golden race, should have been expressed 
Cusean; for it relates to the age of Chus, and the denomination 
of his sons. This substitution was the cause of the other divi- 
sions being introduced ; that eacn age might be distinguished in 
succession by one of baser metal. Had there been no mistake 
about a golden age, we should never have been treated with one 
of silver ; much less with the subsequent of brass and iron. The 
original history relates to the patriarchic age, when the time of 
man's life was not yet abridged to its present standard, and 
when the love of rule and acts of violence first displayed them- 
selves on the earth. The Amonians, wherever they settled, 
carried these traditions along with them, which were thus added 
to the history of the country ; so that the scene of action was 
changed. A colony who styled themselves Saturnians came to 
Italy, and greatly benefited the natives. But the ancients, who 
generally speak collectively in the singular, and instead of Her- 
culeans introduce Hercules; instead of Cadmians, Cadmus ; sup- 
pose a single person, Saturn, to have betaken himself to this 
country. Virgil mentions the story in this light, and speaks of 
Saturn's settling there ; and of the rude state of the nation upon 
his arrival; where he introduced an age of gold. iEn. viii. 314. 
The account is confused ; yet we may discern in it a true history 



WORKS. J 9 

Earth-wandering spirits they their charge began, 
The ministers of good, and guards of man. 
Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide, 
And compass earth, and pass on every side : 
And mark with earnest vigilance of eyes 
Where just deeds live, or crooked wrongs arise: 
Their kingly state; and, delegate from heaven, 
By their vicarious hands the wealth of fields is given. 

The gods then form'd a second race of man, 
Degenerate far ; and silver years began. 
Unlike the mortals of a golden kind : 
Unlike in frame of limbs and mould of mind. 

of the first ages, as may be observed likewise in Hesiod. Both 
the poets, however the scene may be varied, allude to the happy 
times immediately after the deluge ; when the great patriarch 
had full power over his descendants, and equity prevailed without 
written law. — Bryant. 

Their kingly state.'] The administration of forensic justice is 
implied in the words ^=p<*? /WiXhiov, regal office. 

The wealth of jields.~] Heinsius quotes Hesychius to show that 
ttXhto? does not always mean riches, properly so called ; but the 
riches of the soil : and says that it is here applied to the good de- 
mons as presiding over the productions of the seasons. Bac- 
chus, in the Lenaean rites, was invoked by the epithet wXaToJo'w, 
wealth-bestower ; in allusion to the vineyard. It seems inti- 
mated here, that the Spirits reward the deeds of the just by 
abundant harvests ; the common belief of the Greeks, as appears 
both from Hesiod and Homer. 

C2 



2U REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Yet still a hundred years beheld the boy 
Beneath the mother's roof, her infant joy ; 
All tender and unform'd : but when the flower 
Of manhood bloom'd, it wither'd in an hour. 
Their frantic follies wrought them pain and woe : 
Nor mutual outrage could their hands forego : 
Nor would they serve the gods ; nor altars raise 
That in just cities shed their holy blaze. 
Them angry Jove ingulf'd ; who dared refuse 
The gods their glory and their sacred dues : 
Yet named the second-blest in earth they lie, 
And second honours grace their memory. 

A hundred years.] Heinsius explains this passage to mean, 
that " although this age was indeed deteriorated from the former, 
this much of good remained ; that the boys were not early ex- 
posed to the contagion of vice, but long participated the chaste 
and retired education of their sisters in the seclusion of the 
female apartments." Graevius, on the contrary, insists that 
Hesiod notes it as a mark of depravation, that the youth were 
educated in sloth and effeminacy, and grew up, as it were, on 
the lap of their mothers. These two opinions are about 
equally to the purpose. [" The poet manifestly alludes to the lon- 
gevity of persons in the patriarchic age ; for they did not, it 
seems, die at three-score and ten, but took more time even in 
advancing towards puberty. He speaks, however, of their being 
cut off in their prime; and whatever portion of life nature might 
have allotted to them, they were abridged of it by their own 
folly and injustice." — Bryant. 



WORKS. 21 

The Sire of heaven and earth created then 
A race, the third of many-languaged men. 
Unlike the silver they : of brazen mould : 
With ashen war-spears terrible and bold : 
Their thoughts were bent on violence alone, 
The deeds of battle and the dying groan. 
Bloody their feasts, with wheaten food unblest : 
Of adamant was each unyielding breast. 
Huge, nerved with strength each hardy giant stands, 
And mocks approach with unresisted hands : 
Their mansions, implements, and armour shine 
In brass ; dark iron slept within the mine. 
They by each other's hands inglorious fell, 
In freezing darkness plunged, the house of hell : 
Fierce though they were, their mortal course was run ; 
Death gloomy seized, and snatch'd them from the sun. 

Them when th' abyss had cover'd from the skies, 
Lo ! the fourth age on nurturing earth arise : 
Jove formed the race a better, juster line; 
A race of heroes and of stamp divine : 
Lights of the age that rose before our own ; 
As demi-gods o'er earth's wide regions known. 
Yet these dread battle hurried to their end : 
Some where the seven-fold gates of Thebes ascend : 



22 REMAIN'S OF HESIOD. 

The Cadmian realm : where they with fatal might 
Strove for the flocks of (Edipus in fight. 
Some war in navies led to Troy's far shore ; 
O'er the great space of sea their course they bore ; 
For sake of Helen with the beauteous hair : 
And death for Helen' sake o'erwhelm'd them there. 
Them on earth's utmost verge the god assign'd 
A life, a seat, distinct from human kind : 
Beside the deepening whirlpools of the main, 
In those blest isles where Saturn holds his reign, 

To Troy's far shore.] Dr. Clarke in his travels in Greece, 
Egypt, and the Holy-land, has noticed that the existence of Troy, 
and the facts relative to the Trojan war, are supported by a 
variety of evidence independent of Homer : as has been abun- 
dantly shown in the course of the controversy between Mr. 
Bryant and his able antagonist, Mr. Morritt. This passage of 
Hesiod seems to me decisive testimony. If Hesiod be older 
than Homer, as is computed by the chronicler of the Parian 
Marbles, it is self-evident that the Trojan war is not of Homeric 
invention : and if they were contemporary, or even if Hesiod, 
according to the vulgar chronology, were really junior by a cen- 
tury, it is not at all probable that he should have copied the 
fiction of another bard, while tracing the primitive history of 
mankind. He manifestly used the ancient traditions of hia 
nation, of which the war of Troy was one. 

In those blest isles.] Pindar also alludes to these in his second 
Olympic Ode : 

They take the way which Jove did long ordain 
To Saturn's ancient tower beside the deep : 



WORKS. 23 

Apart from heaven's immortals : calm they share 
A rest unsullied by the clouds of care : 
And yearly thrice with sweet luxuriance crown'd 
Springs the ripe harvest from the teeming ground. 

Oh would that Nature had denied me birth 
Midst this fifth race ; this iron age of earth : 

Where gales, that softly breathe, 

Fresh-springing from the bosom of the main 

Through the islands of the blessed blow. 

As the life of these beatified heroes was a renewal of that in 
the golden age, it is figured by the reign of Saturn or Cronus : 
the father of post-diluvian time. The era in which, after the 
waste of the deluge, the vine was planted and corn again sown, 
was represented by tradition as a time of wonderful abundance 
and fruitfulness. Hence apparently the fable of .the Elysian 
fields : which some have supposed to orginate from the reports 
of voyagers, who had visited distant fertile regions. Saturn is 
usually placed in Tartarus : but Tartarus meant the west : from 
the association of darkness with sunset : and the Blessed Islands 
were the Fortunate Isles on the Western Coast of Afric. 

" These heroes, whose equity is so much spoken of, upon a 
nearer inquiry are found to be continually engaged in wars and 
murders ; and like the specimens exhibited of the former ages, 
are finally cut off by each other's hands in acts of robbery and 
violence : some for stealing sheep, others for carrying away the 
wives of their friends and neighbours. Such was the end of 
these laudable banditti : of whom Jupiter, we are told, had so 
high an opinion, that after they had plundered and butchered one 
another, he sent them to the island of the Blest to partake of 
perpetual felicity." — Bryant. 

This iron age of earth.] Les ecrivains de tous les tems ont 



24 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

That long before within the grave I lay,. 
Or long hereafter could behold the day ! 
Corrupt the race, with toils and griefs opprest, 
Nor day nor night can yield a pause of rest. 
Still do the gods a weight of care bestow, 
Though still some good is mingled with the woe. 
Jove on this race of many-languaged man, 
Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began : 
For scarcely spring they to the light of day 
Ere age untimely strews their temples gray. 

r^garde leur siecle comme le pire de tous : il n'y a que Voltaire 
qui ait dit du sien, 

O le bon terns que ce siecle de fer ! 

Encore etait-ce dans un acces de gaiete : car ailleurs il appelle le 
dixhuitieme siecle, l'egout des siecles. C'est un de ces sujets 
sur. lesquels on dit ce qu'on veut : selon qu'il plait d'envisager 
tel ou tel cote des objets. — La Harpe, Lycee, tome premier. 

For scar cell/ spring they to the light of day, 

Ere age untimely strezcs their temples gray.~\ Dr. Martyn, in a 
note on Virgil's 4th Eclogue, has fallen into the error of the old 
interpreters ; when he quotes Hesiod as describing the iron age 
" which was to end when the men of that time grew old and 
gray." Postquam Jacti circa tempora cani fuerint : but the 
proper interpretation is, quum vix nati canescant : as Graevius 
has corrected it. The same critic is unquestionably right in his 
opinion, that the future tenses of this passage in the original are 
to be understood as indefinite present: /xefmLovTat, incusabunt: 
i. e. incusare solent : use to revile. 

Mark, iii. 27. xai tote tH oi»j»v wts hapir&ri*'." and then he will 



WORKS. 25 

No fathers in the sons their features trace : 
The sons reflect no more the father's face : 
The host with kindness greets his guest no more, 
And friends and brethren love not as of yore. 
Reckless of heaven's revenge, the sons behold 
The hoary parents wax too swiftly old : 
And impious point the keen dishonouring tongue 
With hard reproofs and bitter mockeries hung : 
Nor grateful in declining age repay 
The nurturing fondness of their better day. 
Now man's right hand is law : for spoil they wait, 
And lay their mutual cities desolate : 
Unhonour'd he, by whom his oath is fear'd, 
Nor are the good beloved, the just revered. 
With favour graced the evil-doer stands, 
Nor curbs with shame nor equity his hands : 



spoil his house : " that is, he is accustomed to spoil. The im- 
perfect time has also frequently the same acceptation : as in the 
same evangelist : ch. xiv. 12. to wo<r^a e&vo , they killed the pass- 
over : they are used to kill it. 

Now man's right hand is law.] Imitated by Milton in the 
vision of Adam : 

So violence 
Proceeded, and oppression, avid sword-law 
Through all the plain. 



26 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

With crooked slanders wounds the virtuous man, 

And stamps with perjury what hate began. 

Lo ! ill-rejoicing Envy, wing'd with lies, 

Scattering calumnious rumours as she flies, 

The steps of miserable men pursue 

With haggard aspect, blasting to the view. 

Till those fair forms in snowy raiment bright 

Leave the broad earth and heaven-ward soar from 

sight : 
Justice and Modesty from mortals driven, 
Rise to th' immortal family of heaven : 
Dread sorrows to forsaken man remain ; 
No cure of ills : no remedy of pain. 

Now unto kings I frame the fabling song, 
However wisdom unto kings belong. 

Leave the broad earth.] Virgil alludes to this passage, Georg. 

ii. 473. 

From hence Astraea took her flight, and here 

The prints of her departing steps appear. — Dryden. 
As also Juvenal : Sat. vi. line 19. 

I well believe in Saturn's ancient reign 
This Chastity might long on earth remain : — 
By slow degrees her steps Astraea sped 
To heaven above, and both the sisters fled. 
Now unto kings.'] baxntev?, which we render king, was properly, 
in the early times of Greece, a magistrate. The kings against 



works. 27 

A stooping hawk, crook-talon'd, from the vale 
Bore in his pounce a neck-streak'd nightingale, 

whom Hesiod inveighs, are therefore simply a kind of nobles, 
who exercised the judicial office in Bceotia; like the twelve 
of Phceacia mentioned in the Odyssey. See Mitford's History 
of Greece, vol. i. ch. 3. 

A neck-streak 'd nightingale.] nomo.ohipov, with variegated 
throat. This has not been thought appropriate to the nightin- 
gale. Tzetzes and Moschopolus interpreted the term by Tmxao- 
<pxvov, with varied voice; a very forced construction; yet it is 
adopted by Loesner, who renders it by canoram. Ruhnken pro- 
poses the emendation of TroM-Xoy^w , which is synonymous. Others 
have doubted whether a«^v, which is literally singer, might not 
apply to some other bird, as the thrush, which is defined by Lin- 
naeus, " back brown, neck spotted with white." But the name 
singer might have been applied to the nightingale by way of emi- 
nence. In fact I see no difficulty. Linneeus, indeed, describes 
the nightingale, " bill brown, head and back pale mouse-colour, 
with olive spots," and says nothing of the throat. Simonides, 
however, speaks of p^Xapi^svs? asj^vs?, green-necked nightingales, 
which might justify Hesiod's epithet. Bewick in the " British 
Birds" thus describes the luscinia: "the whole upper part of the 
body of a rusty brown tinged with olive; under parts pale ash- 
colour; almost white at the throat" A more ancient ornithologist 
has a description still more nearly approximating to the term of 
Hesiod ; and it seems evident that there is more than one species 
of nightingale. 

" Luscinia, philomela, an^w. 

" The nightingale is about the bigness of a goldfinch. The co- 
lour on the upper part, i. e. the head and back, is a pale fulvous 
(lion, or deep gold colour) with a certain mixture of green, like 
that of a red-wing. Its tail is of a deeper fulvous or red, like a 
red-start's. From its red colour it took the name of rossignuolo, 



28 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And snatch'd among the clouds: beneath the stroke 

This piteous shriek'd, and that imperious spoke : 

« Wretch ! why these screams ? a stronger holds thee 

now: 
Where'er I shape my course a captive thou, 
Maugre thy song, must company my way : 
I rend my banquet or I loose my prey. 
Senseless is he who dares with power contend : 
" Defeat, rebuke, despair shall be his end." 

The swift hawk spake, with wings spread wide in 
air; 
But thou to justice cleave, and wrong forbear. 
Wrong, if he yield to its abhorr'd controul, 
Shall pierce like iron in the poor man's soul: 
Wrong weighs the rich man's conscience to the 

dust, 
When his foot stumbles on the way unjust : 
Far different is the path ; a path of light, 
That guides the feet to equitable right. 
The end of righteousness, enduring long, 
Exceeds the short prosperity of wrong. 

m Italian : (rossignol, French). The belly is white. The parts 
under the wings, breast, and throat, are of a darker colour, with 
a tincture of green: 1 Willoughby's Ornithology, fol. 1678. 



WORKS. 29 

The fool by suffering his experience buys ; 
The penalty of folly makes him wise. 

With crooked judgments, lo ! the oath's dread God 
Avenging runs, and tracks them where they trod : 
Rough are the ways of Justice as the sea ; 
Dragg'd to and fro by men's corrupt decree : 
Bribe-pamper'd men ! whose hands perverting draw 
The right aside, and warp the wrested law. 
Though, while corruption on their sentence waits, 
They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates ; 
Invisible their steps the virgin treads, 
And musters evils o'er their sinful heads. 
She with the dark of air her form arrays 
And walks in awful grief the city- ways : 

The fool by suffering his experience buys.] rr«9«v fc n. vwio$ eynw. 
This seems to have been a national proverb. Homer has a simi- 
lar apophthegm : 11.17.33. 

ripiv tj xa.'.ov 7ref.8ssi;' ps^Sev Js ra vn riot; syvx. 
Confront me not, lest some sore evil rise : 
The fool must rue the act that makes him wise. 
Plato uses the same proverbial sentiment : 

EuXapv.onvat kai {av, Kara. t»v Trapoi/xiav, auririp vmriov TraBovrai yvoovai. 

Beware lest, after the proverb, you get knowledge like the 
fool, by suffering. 

Walks in awful grief the city-ways.'] Something similar is the 
prosopopaeia of Wisdom in the Proverbs of Solomon, ch. viii. 



30 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Her wail is heard, her tear upbraiding falls 
O'er their stain'd manners, their devoted walls. 

But they who never from the right have stray'd, 
Who as the citizen the stranger aid ; 
They and their cities flourish : genial Peace 
Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase : 

She standeth on the top of high places, by the way, and the 
places of the paths. 

She crieth at the gates : at the entry of the city : at the coming 
in of the doors. 

O'er their stain'd manners.] Graevius observes that the inter- 
preters render »Qsa 7*&3v, " most foolishly " by the manners of the 
people : because «?£a signifies also habitations. But as it is not 
pretended that v6ea does not equally signify manners, " the ex- 
treme folly" of the interpreters has, I confess, escaped my pe- 
netration. Is it so very forced an image that Justice should weep 
over the manners of a depraved people? 

They and their cities flourish.] This passage resembles one in 
the nineteenth book of the Odyssey: but not so closely as to jus- 
tify the charge of plagiarism which Dr. Clarke prefers against 
Ilesiod, and which might be retorted upon Homer. These were 
sentiments common to the popular religion. 

Like the praise of some great king 
Who o'er a numerous people and renown'd, 
Presiding like a deity, maintains 
Justice and truth. Their harvests overswell 
The sower's hopes : their trees o'erladen scarce 
Their fruit sustain : no sickness thins the folds : 
The finny swarms of ocean crowd the shores, 
And all are rich and happy for his sake. Cowpee. 






WORKS. 31 

Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar, 
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war. 
Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey ; 
Feasts, strewn by earth, employ their easy day : 
Rich are their mountain oaks : the topmost trees 
With clustering acorns full, the trunks with hiving 

bees. 
Burthen'd with fleece their panting flocks : the race 
Of woman soft reflects the father's face : 

Reflects the father's face.] Montesquieu remarks : " The peo- 
ple mentioned by Pomponius Mela (the Garamantes) had no 
other way of discovering the father but by resemblance. Pater 
est quem nuptiae demonstrant." But this uncertain criterion was 
considered as infallible generally by the ancients. 

She whom no conjugal affections bind, 
Still on a stranger bends her fickle mind ; 
But easy to discern the spurious race, 
None in the child the father's features trace. 

Theocritus — Encomium of Ptolemy. 

Oh may a young Torquatus bending 

From his mother's breast to thee, 
His tiny infant hands extending, 

Laugh with half-open'd lips in childish ecstasy : 
May he reflect the father in his face : 

Known for a Mallius to the glancing eye 
Of strangers unaware, who trace 
In the boy's forehead of paternal grace 

A mother's shining chastity. 

Catullus — Epithalamium on Julia and Mallius. 



32 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main ; 
The fruits of earth are pour'd from every plain. 

But o'er the wicked race, to whom belong 
The thought of evil, and the deed of wrong, 
Saturnian Jove of wide-beholding eyes 
Bids the dark signs of retribution rise : 
And oft the crimes of one destructive fall: 
The crimes of one are visited on all. 
The god sends down his angry plagues from high, 
Famine and pestilence : in heaps they die. 
He smites with barrenness the marriage-bed, 
And generations moulder with the dead : 
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls 
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls : 
Arrests their navies on the ocean's plain, 
And whelms their strength with mountains of the 
main. 

Ponder, oh judges ! in your inmost thought 
The retribution by his vengeance wrought. 
Invisible, the gods are ever nigh, 
Pass through the midst, and bend th' all-seeing eye : 
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right, 
Awless of heaven's revenge, stand naked to their 
sight. 



WORKS. 33 

For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove 

This breathing world, the delegates of Jove. 

Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys 

The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways. 

A virgin pure is Justice : and her birth, 

August, from him who rules the heavens and earth : 

A creature glorious to the gods on high, 

Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky. 

Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat 

In lowly grief at Jove's eternal feet. 



■Holy demons 



rove 



This breathing world. ] Milton is thought to have 

copied Hesiod in this passage : 

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. 

But the coincidence seems merely incidental, as the parallel 
wants completeness. There is nothing of angelic guardianship or 
judicial inspection in the spirits of Milton: he says only, 

All these with ceaseless praise his works behold 
Both day and night. How often from the steep 
Of echoing hill, or thicket, have we heard 
Celestial voices to the midnight air, 
Sole, or responsive to each other's note, 
Singing their great Creator? Par. Lost, iv. 

Their glance alike surveys 

The upright judgments and tti unrighteous nays.] The eyes 
of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. 

Proverbs, xv. 3. 
I) 



34.' REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

There of the soul unjust her plaints ascend : 
So rue the nations when their kings offend : 
When uttering wiles and brooding thoughts of ill, 
They bend the laws and wrest them to their will. 

So rue the nations when their kings offend.] Theobald, in a 
note on Cooke's translation, proposes to change fcs/uoc, the people, 
into Tijftof, then : and renders avrorttrn in the sense of punish, in- 
stead of rue : thus the meaning would be, " that he might then, 
at that instant, punish the sins of the judges." Never was an 
interference with the text so little called for. The meaning which 
Theobald is so scrupulous to admit is exactly conformable with 
that of a preceding passage : 

And oft the crimes of one destructive fall ; 
The crimes of one are visited on all. 
It is idle to inquire where is the justice of this kind of retribu- 
tion ? since it is evident from all the history of mankind that such 
is the course of nature. 

By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted : but it is 
overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. Proverbs, xi. 11. 

The king by judgment establisheth the land; but he that re- 
ceiveth gifts overthroweth it. Ch. xxix. 4. 

In Simpson's notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, this passage is 
compared with the following in Philaster : 

In whose name 
We'll waken all the Gods, and conjure up 
The rods of vengeance, the abused people : 
and it is proposed to understand it in the sense of Fletcher, " that 
the people might be raised up to punish the crimes of their 
prince." There is taste and spirit in this interpretation, which 
cannot be said for the amendment of Theobald : but the common 
acceptation seems to me the right one, for the reasons already 
stated. 



WORKS. 35 

Oh gorged with gold ! ye kingly judges hear ! 

Make straight your paths : your crooked judgments 

fear: 
That the foul record may no more be seen, 
Erased, forgotten, as it ne'er had been ! 

He wounds himself that aims another's wound: 
His evil counsels on himself rebound. 
Jove at his awful pleasure looks from high 
With all-discerning and all-knowing eye ; x ^ 

Nor hidden from its ken what injured right J / 

Within the city-walls eludes the light. 
Or oh ! if evil wait the righteous deed, 
If thus the wicked gain the righteous meed, 
Then may not I, nor yet my son remain 
In this our generation just in vain ! 
But sure my hope, not this doth Heaven approve, 
Not this the work of thunder-darting Jove. 

Deep let my words, oh Perses ! graven be : 
Hear Justice, and renounce th' oppressor's plea : 
This law the wisdom of the god assign'd 
To human race and to the bestial kind : 
To birds of air and fishes of the wave, 
And beasts of earth, devouring instinct gave 
D 2 



36 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

In them no justice lives : he bade be known 
This better sense to reasoning man alone. 
Who from the seat of judgment shall impart 
The truths of knowledge utter'd from his heart ; 
On him the god of all-discerning eye 
Pours down the treasures of felicity. 
Who sins against the right, his wilful tongue 
With perjuries of lying witness hung; 
Lo ! he is hurt beyond the hope of cure : 
Dark is his race, nor shall his name endure. 
Who fears his oath shall leave a name to shine 
With brightening lustre through his latest line. 

Pours dozen the treasures of felicity.] In the house of the 
righteous is much treasure : but in the revenues of the wicked 
there is trouble. Proverbs, xv. 6. 

The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish : 
but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. Ch. x. 3. 

The memory of the just is blessed : but the name of the wicked 
shall rot. Ch. x. 7. 

A false witness shall not be unpunished : and he that speaketh 
lies shall perish. Ch. xix. 9. 

The righteous shall never be removed : but the wicked shall not 
inhabit the earth. Ch. x. 30. 

The inheritance of sinners' children shall perish: and their pos- 
terity shall have a perpetual reproach. Wisdom of Jesus the 
Son of Sirach, xli. 6. 

Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed 
from among the children of men. Psalms, xxi. 10 



WORKS. 37 

Most foolish Perses ! let the truths I tell, 
Which spring from knowledge, in thy bosom dwell : 
Lo ! wickednesses rife in troops appear ; 
Smooth is the track of vice, the mansion near: 
On virtue's path delays and perils grow : 
The gods have placed before the sweat that bathes the 
brow: 

Smooth is the track of vice. .] The way of sinners is made plain 
with stones : but at the end thereof is the pit of hell. Wisdom 
of Jesus the Son of Sirach, xxi. 10. 

Both Plato and Xenophon who quote this line of Hesiod, read 
xeiw, smooth, instead of x<>>:, short. Krebsius prefers the read- 
ing, as a short road and dzcells near make a vapid tautology : 
and smooth forms a good antithesis to rough. 

The sweat that bathes the brow.'] Spenser has imitated this pa- 
rable in his description of Honour : 

In woods, in waves, in wars she wonts to dwell, 

And will be found with peril and with pain : 
Ne can the man that moulds in idle cell 

Unto her happy mansion attain. 
Before her gate high God did sweat ordain, 

And wakeful watches ever to abide : 
But easy is the way and passage plain 

To Pleasure's palace : it may soon be spied, 
And day and night her doors to all stand open wide. 

This allegory of Hesiod seems the basis of the apologue of Her- 
cules, Virtue and Vice, which Xenophon in his (< Memorabilia," 
2, 21, quotes by memory from Prodicus's " History of Hercules." 



38 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And ere the foot can reach her high abode, 
Long, rugged, steep th' ascent, and rough the road. 
The ridge once gain'd, the path so rude of late 
Runs easy on, and level to the gate. 

Far best is he whom conscious wisdom guides ; 
Who first and last the right and fit decides: 
He too is good, that to the wiser friend 
His docile reason can submissive bend : 
But worthless he that reason's voice defies, 
Nor wise himself, nor duteous to the wise. 

But thou, oh Perses ! what my words impart 
Let mem'ry bind for ever on thy heart. 
Oh son of Dios ! labour evermore, 
That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door ; 

To the wiser friend.~\ The way of a fool is right in his own 
eyes : but he that hearkeneth to counsel is wise. Proverbs, 
xii. 15. 

A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him : neither will he 
go unto the wise. Ch. xv. 12. 

Oh son of Dios.] Atov yevae: Tzetzes had written in the margin 
a toy yivoq, and this is in all probability the true reading; not that 
there is any thing extraordinary in the application of the term 
divine, as the Greeks used it in a wide latitude, and on frequent 
occasions. Homer applies it to the swineherd of Ulysses. It 
vas a term of courtesy or respect; and Hesiod may have in- 
tended to compliment, not Perses, but their father. We have, 






WORKS. 39 

That Ceres blest, with spiky garland crown'd, 
Greet thee with love and bid thy barns abound. 

Still on the sluggard hungry want attends, 
The scorn of man, the hate of heaven impends : 

however, the testimony of Ephorus, as recorded by Plutarch, 
that Dius was the father of Hesiod ; and a copyist might easily 
have mistaken a u for a v. The author of the " Contest of Ho- 
mer and Hesiod" seems to have read Aioy yivoc y as he make 
Homer address his competitor, 

Hcu* exyove Atcv — 

Oh Hesiod ! Dius' son ! 

The reading is recommended hy the Abbe Sevin in the " His- 
toire de l'Academie des Inscriptions/ 7 and by Villoison; and is 
adopted by Brunck in his " Gnomici Poetae Graeci." The herma 
of Hesiod exhibited by Bellorio in his " Veterum Poetarum Ima- 
gines" has the inscription, nc-iobav, Lim Ao-Kpaios, Ascraean Hesiod 
the son of Dios. 

Still on the sluggard hungry want attends.] He that gather- 
eth in summer is a wise son; but he that sleepeth in harvest is a 
son that causeth shame. Proverbs, x. 5. 

He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread : but he that 
followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. Ch. 
xxviii. 19. 

Hate not laborious work; neither husbandry : which the Most 
High has ordained. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, 
vii. 15. 

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand : but the hand 
of the diligent maketh rich. Proverbs, x. 4. 

The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to 
labour : he coveteth greedily all the day long : but the righteous 
giveth and spareth not. Ch. xxi. 25. 






40 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

While he, averse from labour, drags his days, 
Yet greedy on the gain of others preys : 
Even as the stingless drones devouring seize 
With glutted sloth the harvest of the bees. 
Love ev'ry seemly toil, that so the store 
Of foodful seasons heap thy garner's floor. 
From labour men returns of wealth behold ; 
Flocks in their fields and in their coffers gold : 
From labour shalt thou with the love be blest 
Of men and gods ; the slothful they detest. 
Not toil, but sloth shall ignominious be; 
Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee; 
Shall view thy growing wealth with alter'd sense, 
For glory, virtue walk with opulence. 
Thou, like a god, since labour still is found 
The better part, shalt live belov'd, renown'd ; 
If, as I counsel, thou thy witless mind, 
Though weak and empty as the veering wind, 
From others' coveted possessions turn'd, 
To thrift compel, and food by labour earn'd. 
Shame, which our aid or injury we find, 
Shame to the needy clings of evil kind ; 

Shame, which our aid or injury wefind^] The verse 
No shame is his, 
Shame, of mankind the injury or aid, 



WORKS. 41 

Shame to low indigence declining tends : 

Bold zeal to wealth's proud pinnacle ascends. 

But shun extorted riches ; oh far best 

The heaven-sent wealth without reproach possest. 

Whoe'er shall mines of hoarded gold command, 

By fraudful tongue or by rapacious hand ; 

As oft betides when lucre lights the flame, 

And shamelessness expels the better shame ; 

Him shall the god cast down, in darkness hurl'd, 

His name, his offspring wasted from the world : 

occurs in the Iliad, 24; and in the Odyssey, 17, we meet with 

An evil shame the needy beggar holds : 
but Le Clerc should have known better than to follow Plutarch 
in the supposition of the lines being inserted from Homer by some 
other hand. It is one of the proverbial and traditionary sayings 
which frequently occur in their writings, and which belong rather 
to the language than to the poet. 

The admirable Jewish scribe, in that ancient book of the Apo- 
crypha entitled Ecclesiasticus, uses the same proverb : 

Observe the opportunity and beware of evil; and be not 
ashamed when it concerneth thy soul. 

For there is a shame that bnngeth sin; and there is a shame 
which is glory and grace. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, 
jv. 20, 21. 

But shun extorted riches.] He that hasteth to be rich, hath 
an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon 
him. Proverbs, xxviii. 22. 

He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he 
shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Ch. xxviii, 8. 



42 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The goods for which he pawn'd his soul decay, 
The breath and shining bubble of a day. 

Alike the man of sin is he confest, 
Who spurns the suppliant and who wrongs the guest; 
Who climbs, by lure of stolen embraces led, 
With ill-timed act, a brother's marriage bed ; 
Who dares by crafty wickedness abuse 
His trust, and robs the orphans of their dues; 
Who, on the threshold of afflictive age, 
His hoary parent stings with taunting rage : 
On him shall Jove in anger look from high, 
And deep requite the dark iniquity : 
But wholly thou from these refrain thy mind, 
Weak as it is, and wavering as the wind. 

With thy best means perform the ritual part, 
Outwardly pure and spotless at the heart, 
And on thy altar let unblemish'd thighs 
In fragrant savour to th' immortals rise. 

Who spurns the suppliant.] The ninth book of the Odyssey 
exhibits a beautiful passage illustrative of the high reverence in 
which the Grecians held the duties of hospitality. 
Illustrious lordi respect the gods, and us 
Thy suitors: suppliants are the care of Jove 
The hospitable : he their wrongs resents, 
And where the stranger sojourns there is he. Cowper. 



WORKS. 43 

Or thou in other sort may'st well dispense 
Wine-offerings and the smoke of frankincense, 
Ere on the nightly couch thy limbs be laid ; 
Or when the stars from sacred sun-rise fade. 
So shall thy piety accepted move 
Their heavenly natures to propitious love : 
Ne'er shall thy heritage divided be, 
But others part their heritage to thee. 

Let friends oft bidden to thy feast repair ; 
Let not a foe the social moment share. 
Chief to thy open board the neighbour call : 
When, unforeseen, domestic troubles fall, 
The neighbour runs ungirded ; kinsmen wait, 
And, lingering for their raiment, hasten late. 
As the good neighbour is our prop and stay, 
So is the bad a pit-fall in our way. 
Thus blest or curs'd, we this or that obtain, 
The first a blessing and the last a bane. 
How should thine ox by chance untimely die? 
The evil neighbour looks and passes by. 

If aught thou borrowest, well the measure weigh ; 
The same good measure to thy friend repay, 

If aught thou borrowest .] Lend to thy neighbour in time of 
his need, and pay thou thy neighbour again in due season. 



44 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Or more, if more thou canst, unask'd concede, 
So shall he prompt supply thy future need. 
Usurious gains avoid ; usurious gain, 
Equivalent to loss, will prove thy bane. 

Who loves thee, love; him woo that friendly 
wooes: 
Give to the giver, but to him refuse 
That giveth not ; their gifts the generous earn ; 
But none bestows where never is return. 



Keep thy word and deal faithfully with him, and thou shalt 
always find the thing that is necessary for thee. Wisdom of 
Jesus the Son of Sirach. 

1/ Who loves thee, love.] Far different is the spirit of the Gos- 

pel. " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour and hate thine enemy : but I say unto you, Love 
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and per- 
secute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is 
in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew, 
v. 43. 

If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sin- 
ners also love those that love them. And if ye lend to them of 
whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also 
lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your ene- 
mies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again ; and your 
reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest; 
for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Luke, vi. 32 



WORKS. 45 

Munificence is blest : by heaven accurst 
Extortion, of death-dealing plagues the worst. 
Who bounteous gives though large his bounty flow, 
Shall feel his heart with inward rapture glow : 
Th' extortioner of bold unblushing sin, 
Though small the plunder, feels a thorn within. 

If with a little thou a little blend 
Continual, mighty shall the heap ascend. 
Who bids his gather'd substance gradual grow 
Shall see not livid hunger's face of woe. 
No bosom-pang attends the home-laid store, 
But rife with loss the food without thy door : 
'Tis good to take from hoards, and pain to need 
What is far from thee : give the precept heed. 

When broach'd or at the lees, no care be thine 
To save the cask, but spare the middle wine. 

To him the friend that serves thee glad dispense 
With bounteous hand the meed of recompense. 

Spare the middle zcine.~\ Hesiod says that Ave should use the 
middle of the cask more sparingly, that we might enjoy the best 
wine the longer. It was the ancient opinion that wine was best 
in the middle, oil at the top, and honey at the bottom. Gbjevfus. 

This opinion of Hesiod is discussed by Plutarch in his Sympo- 
*iacs, iii. 7, and by Macrobius in his Saturnalia, vii. 12. 



I 



46 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Not on a brother's plighted word rely, 
But, as in laughter, set a witness by ; 
Mistrust destroys us and credulity. 

Let no fair woman tempt thy sliding mind 
With garment gather'd in a knot behind; 
She prattling with gay speech inquires thy home ; 
But trust a woman, and a thief is come. 

One only son his father's house may tend, 
And e'en with one domestic hoards ascend : 
But when thou diest in hoary years declin'd, 
Then mayst thou leave a second son behind ; 



} 






As in laughter.] k«j te aaeriyvtira ytXao-as tiri fxaprvpa 
The interpreters say, 

Etiam cum fratre ludens, testem adhibeto. 

But I should place the comma after fratre, and join ludens with 
testem adhibeto. " Even in a compact with your brother, have a 
witness: you may do it laughingly, or as if in jest."' 

With garment gather'd in a knot behind.] irvyog-ohes, adorning 
the hinder parts, seems to refer to some meretricious distinction 
of dress. Solon compelled women of loose character to appear in 
public in flowered robes. Solomon in that beautiful chapter of 
the Proverbs has a similar allusion. " There met him a woman 
with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart." Ch. vii. 10. 

Prattling with gay speech.] With her much fair speech she 
caused him to yield: with the flattering of her lips she forced 
him. Proverbs, vii. 21. 



WORKS. 47 

For many sons from heaven shall wealth obtain ; 
The care is greater, greater is the gain. 

Do thus : if riches be thy soul's desire, 
By toils on toils to this thy hope aspire. 

II. 

When, Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars arise 
Before the sun above the dawning skies, 
'Tis time to reap ; and when they sink below 
The morn- illumined west, 'tis time to sow. 



■Arise 



Before the sun. ] In the words of Hesiod there 

is made mention of one rising of the Pleiads, which is heliacal, and 
of a double setting : the time of the rising may be referred to the 
11th of May. The first setting, which indicated ploughing-time, 
was cosmical; when, as the sun rises, the Pleiads sink below the 
opposite horizon, which, in the time of Hesiod, happened about the 
.beginning of November. The second setting is somewhat ob- 
scurely designated in the line 

They in his lustre forty days lie hid; 
and is the heliacal setting, which happened the third of April, 
and after which the Pleiads were immerged in the sun's splendour 
forty days. Hesiod, however, speaks as if he confounded the 
two settings, for no one would suppose but that the first-men- 
tioned setting was that after which the Pleiads are said to be 
hidden previous to the harvest. But his words are to be ex- 
plained with more indulgence, since he could not be ignorant of 
the time that intervened between the season of ploughing and 
that of harvest. Le Clerc. 

f Tis time to sou\] In the original, begin ploughing; by which 



48 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Know too they set, immergcd into the sun, 
While forty days entire their circle run ; 

is meant the last ploughing, when they turned up the soil to re- 
ceive the seed. Thus Virgil, Georg. 1 : 

First let the morning Pleiades go down : 

From the sun's rays emerge the Gnossian crown, 

Ere to th' unwilling earth thou trust the seed. Warton. 

Heyne observes, " they sink below the region of the West, at 
the same time that the sun emerges from the East ; " * the cos- 
mical setting described by Hesiod. The receding of the bright 
star of the crown of Ariadne, which Virgil mentions, is its reced- 
ing from the sun; that is, its heliacal rising. 

The heliacal rising is a star's emersion out of the sun's rays; 
that is, a star rises heliacally when, having been in conjunction 
with the sun, the sun passes it and recedes from it. The star 
then emerges out of the sun's rays so far that it becomes again 
visible, after having been for some time lost in the superiority of 
day-light. The time of day in which the star rises heliacally is 
at the dawn of day; it is then seen for a few minutes near the 
horizon, just out of the reach of the morning light; and it rises in 
a double sense from the horizon and from the sun's rays. After- 
wards, as the sun's distance increases, it is seen more and more 
every morning. 

The heliacal rising and setting is then, properly, an appari- 
tion and occultation. With respect to the Pleiads, it appears 

* In a note by Holdsworth on Warton's Georgics, it is observed 
that the heliacal setting of these stars is pointed out by the word 
abscondantur. But this is a contradiction; for Eoa absconduntur 
is the same as occidunt matutina, set in the morning; but the 
time of day in which a star sets heliacally is in the evening, just 
after sun-set, when it is seen only for a few minutes in the west 
near the horizon, on the edge of the sun's splendour, into which 
in a few days more it sinks. 






WORKS. 49 

And with the lapse of the revolving year, 
When sharpen'd is the sickle, re-appear. 
Law of the fields, and known to every swain 
Who turns the fallow soil beside the main ; 
Or who, remote from billowy ocean's gales, 
Tills the rich glebe of inland- winding vales. 

Plough naked still, and naked sow the soil, 
And naked reap ; if kindly to thy toil 



that different authors vary in fixing the duration of their occulta- 
tion from about thirty-one days to above forty. 

Plough naked still.] Virgil copies this direction, Georg. i : 

Plough naked swain ! and naked sow the land, 

For lazy winter numbs the labouring hand. Dryden. 

Servius explains the meaning to be, that he should plough and 
sow " in fair weather, when it was so hot as to make clothing 
superfluous." This seems to be very idle advice, and fixes on 
Virgil the imputation of a truism. An equally superfluous coun- 
sel is ascribed by Robinson and Graevius to Hesiod. We are 
correctly told that both yv^oq and nudus applied to men who had 
laid aside their upper garment, whether the pallia or toga, the Gre- 
cian cloak or the Roman gown ; and thus is explained the passage 
in Matthew, xxiv. 18 : " Neither let him which is in the field re- 
turn back to take his clothes:" but as no husbandman, whether 
Greek or Italian, unless insane, would dream of following the 
plough in a trailing cloak, Hesiod may safely be acquitted of so 
unnecessary a piece of advice. In the hot climates of Greece and 
Italy, it was probably the custom for active husbandmen to bare 

K 



50 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Thou hope to gather all that Ceres yields, 
And view thy crops in season crown the fields ; 
Lest thou to strangers' gates penurious rove, 
And every needy effort fruitless prove : 
E'en as to me thou cam'st ; but hope no more 
That I shall give or lend thee of my store. 
Oh foolish Perses ! be the labours thine 
Which the good gods to earthly man assign ; 
Lest with thy spouse, thy babes, thou vagrant ply, 
And sorrowing crave those alms which all deny. 
Twice may thy plaints benignant favour gain, 
And haply thrice may not be pour'd in vain ; 
If still persisting plead thy wearying prayer, 
Thy words are nought, thy eloquence is air. 
Did exhortation move, the thought should be, 
From debt releasement, days from hunger free. 

A house, a woman, and a steer provide, 
Thy slave to tend the cows, but not thy bride. 
Within let all fit implements abound, 
Lest with refused entreaty wandering round, 

the upper part of their bodies. Virgil does not say u Plough in 
fine weather and not in winter;" but " Plough with your best di- 
ligence, for winter will soon be here :" equivalent to Hesiod'g 
si Summer will not last for ever." 



WORKS. 51 

Thy wants still press, the season glide away, 

And thou with scanted labour mourn the day. 

Thy task defer not till the morn arise, 

Or the third sun th' unfinish'd work surprise. 

The idler never shall his garners fill, 

Nor he that still defers and lingers still. 

Lo ! diligence can prosper every toil ; 

The loiterer strives with loss and execrates the soil. 

When rests the keen strength of th' o'erpowering sun 
From heat that made the pores in rivers run ; 
When rushes in fresh rains autumnal Jove, 
And man's unburthen'd limbs now lightlier move; 
For now the star of day with transient light 
Rolls o'er our heads and joys in longer night; 
When from the worm the forest boles are sound, 
Trees bud no more, but earthward cast around 
Their withering foliage, then remember well 
The timely labour, and thy timber fell. 

The idler never shall his garners fill.] He that tilleth his land 
shall have plenty of bread : but he that followeth after vain per- 
sons shall have poverty enough. Proverbs, xxviii. 19. 

Trees bud no more.] The sap of the trees, which causes them 
to germinate, is then at rest. Trees when moist with sap are 
subject to worms, and the timber in consequence would be liable, 
to putrefaction. Vitruvius also recommends that timber be felled 
in the autumn. 

E 2 



52 REMAINS OP HESIOD. 

Hew from the wood a mortar of three feet ; 
Three cubits may the pestle's length complete : 
Seven feet the fittest axle-tree extends ; 
If eight the log, the eighth a mallet lends. 
Cleave many curved blocks thy wheel to round, 
And let three spans its outmost orbit bound ; 
Whereon slow-rolling thy suspended wain, 
Ten spans in breadth, may traverse firm the plain. 

If hill or field supply a holm-oak bough 
Of bending figure like the downward plough, 
Bear it away : this durable remains 
While the strong steers in ridges cleave the plains : 

A mortar of three feet.] The purposes to which ancient mar- 
bles are applied by the Turks may serve to explain the use of 
the mortar, which Hesiod mentions as part of the apparatus of 
the husbandman. " Capitals, when of large dimensions, are 
turned upside down, and being hollowed out are placed in the 
middle of the street, and used publicly for bruising wheat and 
rice, as in a mortar." Dallaway's Constantinople. 

Of bending figure.] So also Virgil, Georg. i. 169 : 

Young elms, with early force, in copses bow, 
Fit for the figure of the crooked plough. 

Dryden. 

Dr. Martyn, in his comparison of Virgil's plough with that of 
Hesiod, has fallen into the mistake of the old interpreters who 
render yvnp dentate, the share-beam: whereas ymv, is burim, 
the plough-tail, to which the share-beam joins. 



WORKS. 



53 



If with firm nails thy artist join the whole, 
Affix the share-beam, and adapt the pole. 

Two ploughs provide, on household works intent, 
This art-compacted, that of native bent : 
A prudent fore-thought : one may crashing fail, 
The other, instant yoked, shall prompt avail. 
Of elm or bay the draught-pole firm endures, 
The plough-tail holm, the share-beam oak secures. 

Two males procure : be nine their sum of years : 
Then hale and strong for toil the sturdy steers : 
Nor shall they headstrong-struggling spurn the soil, 
And snap the plough and mar th' unfinish'd toil. 
In forty's prime thy ploughman : one with bread 
Of four-squared loaf in double portions fed. 

Thy artist join the zvhole.] In the original " the servant of 
Minerva," that is, the carpenter. Minerva presided over all 
crafts, and was the patroness of works in iron and wood. 

■ with bread 

Of four-squared loaf ] The loaf here men- 
tioned is similar to the quadra of the Romans : so denominated 
from its being marked four-square by incisions at equal distances. 
See Athenaeus, iii. 29. 

By " a quadruple loaf containing eight portions," Hesiod, 
perhaps, means a loaf double the usual size ; similar, probably, 
to that mentioned by Theocritus, Idyl. xxiv. 135 : 

A huge Doric loaf: 
Which he that digs the ground and sets the plant 
Might eat and well be fill'd. 



54 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

He steadily shall cut the furrow true, 
Nor towards his fellows glance a rambling view : 
Still on his task intent : a stripling throws 
Heedless the seed, and in one furrow strows 
The lavish handful twice : while wistful stray 
His longing thoughts to comrades far away. 

Mark yearly when among the clouds on high 
Thou hear'st the shrill crane's migratory cry, 

The shrill crane's migratory cry.~\ The cranes generally leave 
Europe for a more southern climate about the latter end of au- 
tumn ; and return in the beginning of summer. Their cry is the 
loudest among birds ; and although they soar to such a height as 
to be invisible, it is distinctly heard. It is often a prognostic of 
rain : as from the immense altitude of their ascent they are pe- 
culiarly susceptible of the motions and changes of the atmo- 
sphere : but Tzetzes is mistaken in supposing that the migratory 
cry of the crane denotes only its sensibility of cold. These mi- 
grations are performed in the night-time, and in numerous bodies; 
and the clangous scream, alluded to by Hesiod, is of use to 
govern their course. By this cry they are kept together ; are 
directed to descend upon the corn-fields, the favourite scene of 
their depredations, and to betake themselves again to flight in case 
of alarm. Though they soar above the reach of sight they can, 
themselves, clearly distinguish every thing upon the earth be- 
neath them. See " Goldsmith's Animated Nature.'' Virgil 
notices the crane's instinct as to rain, Georg. i. 375 : 

The wary crane foresees it first, and sails 
Above the storm, and leaves the lowly vales. . 

Drydek. 






WORKS. 55 

Of ploughing-time the sign and wintry rains : 
Care gnaws his heart who destitute remains 
Of the fit yoke : for then the season falls 
To feed thy horned steers within their stalls. 

Of ploughing-time the sign.] Of the first ploughing Hesiod 
says, Etopc 7to\;;v : turn the soil in spring ; of the second, Sepeos 
mvu.v.t, ploughed again in summer; the summer tilth: of the 
third apoTo\ : by which he invariably means the seed-ploughing, 
when they both ploughed up and sowed the ground. 

Salmasius in Solinum, 509. 
Kobinson quotes a passage of Aristophanes: Birds, 711: 

" Sow when the screaming crane migrates to Afric." 
The ploughing first mentioned by Hesiod is, then, actually the 
last. It appears that he recommends ground to be twi-fallowed : 
or prepared twice by ploughing before the seed-ploughing. Virgil 
directs it to be tri-fallowed, Georg. i. 47 : 

Deep in the furrows press the shining share : 
Those lands at last repay the peasant's care, 
Which twice the sun and twice the frosts sustain, 
And burst his barns surcharged with ponderous grain. 

Warton. 
Fallowing, or ploughing the soil while at rest from yielding a 
crop, prepares it for the growth of seed by pulverizing it, ex- 
posing it to the influences of the atmosphere, and destroying the 
weeds : and is of essential use in recovering land that had been 
impoverished and exhausted by a succession of the same crops. 
The practice of fallows seems, however, to be now in a great 
degree superseded by that of an interchange of other crops in 
rotation ; and the succession of green or leguminous plants al- 
ternately with the white crops or grain : the frequent hoeings, in 
this mode of tillage, cleaning the soil no less effectually than 
fallowings. 



56 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Easy to speak the word, " beseech thee friend ! 
Thy waggon and thy yoke of oxen lend :" 
Easy the prompt refusal ; " nay, but I 
Have need of oxen, and their work is nigh." 
Rich in his own conceit, he then too late 
May think to rear the waggon's timber'd weight : 
Fool ! nor yet knows the complicated frame 
A hundred season'd blocks may fitly claim : 
These let thy timely care provide before, 
And pile beneath thy roof the ready store. 

Improve the season : to the plough apply 
Both thou and thine ; and toil in wet and dry : 
Haste to the field with break of glimmering morn, 
That so thy grounds may wave with thickening corn. 

In spring upturn the glebe : and break again 
With summer tilth the iterated plain, 

Rich in his own conceit.] The sluggard is wiser in his own 
conceit than seven men who can render a reason. Proverbs, 
xxvi. 16. 

These let thy timely care provide before.] See Virgil, Georg. 
i. 167 : 

The sharpen'd share and heavy-timber'd plough : 
And Ceres' ponderous waggon rolling slow : 
And Celeus' harrows, hurdles, sleds to trail 
O'er the press'd grain, and Bacchus' flying sail : 
These long before provide. Warton. 






WORKS. 57 

It shall not mock thy hopes : be last thy toil, 
Raised in light ridge, to sow the fallow'd soil: 
The fallow'd soil bids execration fly, 
And brightens with content the in flint's eve. 

Jove subterrene, chaste Ceres claim thy vow, 
When grasping first the handle of the plough, 
O'er thy broad oxen's backs thy quickening hand 
With lifted stroke lets fall the goading wand ; 
Whilst yoked and harness'd by the fastening thong, 
They slowly drag the draught-pole's length along. 
So shall the sacred gifts of earth appear, 
And ripe luxuriance clothe the plenteous ear. 

A boy should tread thy steps : with rake o'erlay 
The buried seed, and scare the birds away : 

Jove subterrene.] Guietus supposes that the husband of Pro- 
serpine is invoked from the consanguinity between Pluto, Proser- 
pine, and Ceres. But this is not the only reason. Graevius pro- 
perly remarks, that the earth, and all under the earth, were sub- 
ject to Pluto, as the air was to Jupiter : Pluto, therefore, was 
supposed the giver of those treasures which the earth produces : 
whether of metals or grain. He was in fact the same with 
Plutus : and both names are formed from the Greek word 7tx«to?, 
wealth. 

And scare the birds away.~\ So Virgil, Georg. i. 156 : 

Et sonitu terrebis woes. 
Scare with a shout the birds. 



58 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

(Good is the apt oeconomy of things 
While evil management its mischief brings:) 
Thus, if aerial Jove thy cares befriend, 
And crown thy tillage with a prosperous end, 
Shall the rich ear in fulness of its grain 
Nod on the stalk and bend it to the plain. 
So shalt thou sweep the spider's films away, 
That round thy hollow bins lie hid from day : 
I ween, rejoicing in the foodful stores 
Obtain'd at length, and laid within thy doors : 
For plenteousness shall glad thee through the year 
Till the white blossoms of the spring appear : 
Nor thou on others' heaps a gazer be, 
But others owe their borrow'd store to thee. 
If, ill-advised, thou turn the genial plains 
His wintry tropic when the sun attains ; 
Thou, then, may'st reap, and idle sit between : 
Mocking thy gripe the meagre stalks are seen : 
Whilst, little joyful, gather'st thou in bands 
The corn whose chaffy dust bestrews thy hands. 



Nor thou on others' heaps a gazer be.] Virgil, Georg. i. 158 : 

On others' crops you may with envy look, 
And shake for food the long-abandon'd oak. 

Drydek 






WORKS. 59 

In one scant basket shall thy harvest lie, 

And few shall pass thee, then, with honouring eye. 

Now thus, now otherwise is Jove's design ; 

To men inscrutable the ways divine : 

But if thou late upturn the furrow'd field, 

One happy chance a remedy may yield. 

O'er the wide earth when men the cuckoo hear 

From spreading oak-leaves first delight their ear, 

Three days and nights let heaven in ceaseless rains 

Deep as thy ox's hoof o'erflow the plains; 

So shall an equal crop thy time repair 

With his who earlier launch'd the shining share. 

Lay all to heart : nor let the blossom'd hours 

Of spring escape thee ; nor the timely showers. 

Pass by the brazier's forge where loiterers meet, 
Nor saunter in the portico's throng'd heat ; 

And few shall pass thee then with honouring eye.'] The 
Psalmist alludes to a blessing given by the passers-by at harvest : 
while comparing the wicked to grass withering on the house-top : 
" Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth 
sheaves his bosom : neither do they which go by say, " The 
blessing of the Lord be upon you." Psalm cxxix. 7, 8. 

The brazier's forge.] b&kos was properly a seat or bench : and 
Xe^ - , conversation, chit-chat — but they came to be applied to 
the places were loungers sat and talked: hence the former meant 
a shop, and the latter a portico, piazza, or public exchange, 



60 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

When in the wintry season rigid cold 

Invades the limbs and binds them in its hold. 

Lo ! then th' industrious man with thriving store 

Improves his household management the more : 

And this do thou : lest intricate distress 

Of winter seize, and needy cares oppress : 

Lest, famine-smitten, thou, at length, be seen 

To gripe thy tumid foot with hand from hunger lean. 

Pampering his empty hopes, yet needing food, 

On ill designs behold the idler brood : 

Sit in the crowded portico and feed 

On that ill hope, while starving with his need. 

Thou in mid-summer to thy labourers cry, 

" Make now your nests," for summer hours will fly. 

whither idlers of all kinds resorted. It should seem from Homer 
that beggars took up their night's lodging in such places : 
Odyssey xvii. Melantho, taking Ulysses for a mendicant, says to 
him, 

Thou wilt not seek for rest some brazier's forge, 

Or portico. 

To gripe thy tumid foot.] Aristotle remarks that, in famished 
persons, the upper parts of the body are dried up, and the 
lower extremities become tumid. Scaliger. 

Make now your nests.] Grsevius finds out that^a^tai may mean 
huts and barns, as well as nests-, and in the true spirit of a 
verbal commentator, explodes the old interpretation of " facite 
nidos" and substitutes " exstruite casas:". in which he is fol- 



WORKS. 61 

Beware the January month : beware 

i 
Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air 

Which flays the herds ; those frosts that bitter sheathe 

The nipping air and glaze the ground beneath. 

From Thracia, nurse of steeds, comes rushing forth, 

O'er the broad sea, the whirlwind of the north, 

And moves it with his breath : then howl the shores 

Of earth, and long and loud the forest roars. 

He lays the oaks of lofty foliage low, -\ 

Tears the thick pine-trees from the mountains brow > 

And strews the vallies with their overthrow. J 

lowed, like the leader of the flock, by all the modern editors. 
These viri doctissimi are for ever stumbling on school-boy ab- 
surdities in their labour to be critical and sagacious: "they 
strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Are the labourers to set 
about building huts and barns in the middle of harvest? Who 
does not see that " make nests," as old Chapman properly 
renders it, is a mere proverbial figure ? " Make hay while the 
sun shines." 

Those icy frosts.] Hesiod is said, in this description, to have 
imitated Orpheus : as if two poets could not describe the appear- 
ances and effects of winter, without copying from each other. 

Many and frequent from the clouds of heaven 
The frosts rush down, on beeches and all trees, 
Mountains and rocks and men : and every face 
Is touch'd with sadness. They sore-nipping smite 
The beasts among the hills : nor any man 
Can leave his dwelling : quell'd in every limb 
By galling cold : in all his limbs congeal'd. 



62 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

He stoops to earth ; shrill swells the storm around, 
And all the vast wood rolls a deeper roar of sound. 
The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold, 
And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold. 
Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin, 
But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within. 
Not his rough hide can then the ox avail : 
The long-hair'd goat defenceless feels the gale : 
Yet vain the north-wind's rushing strength to wound 
The flock, with thickening fleeces fenced around. 
He bows the old man, crook'd beneath the storm ; 
But spares the smooth-skin'd virgin's tender form. 
Yet from bland Venus' mystic rites aloof, 
She safe abides beneath her mother's roof: 
The suppling waters of the bath she swims, 
With shining ointment sleeks her dainty limbs : 

Yet from bland Venus' mystic riles aloof.'] Hesiod introduces 
the privacy and retiredness of a virgin's apartment in the house 
of her mother, as conveying the idea of more complete shelter. 

With shining ointment.] Ointment always accompanied the 
bath. Thus Homer describes the bathing of Nausicaa and her 
maids in the sixth book of the Odyssey : 

And laving next and smoothing o'er with oil 
Their limbs, all seated on the river bank 
They took repast. 

And afterwards of Ulysses : 



I 



WORKS. 63 

In her soft chamber pillow'd to repose, 

While through the wintry nights the tempest blows. 

Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet ; 
Starved midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat : 

At his side they spread 
Mantle and vest; and next the limpid oil 
Presenting to him in a golden cruse, 
Exhorted him to bathe. Cowper. 

Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet.'] Athenaeus, book vii. 
explodes the notion of the polypus gnawing its own feet, and 
states that its feet are so injured by the congers or sea-eels. 
Pliny accounts for the mutilation in rather a marvellous manner. 
" They are ravenously fond of oysters : these, at the touch, 
close their shell, and cutting off the claws of the polypus take 
their food from their plunderer. The polypi, therefore, lie in 
wait for them when they are open ; and placing a little stone, so 
as not to touch the body of the oyster, and so as not to be 
ejected by the muscular motion of the shell, assail them in se- 
curity and extract the flesh. The oyster contracts itself, but to 
no purpose, having been thus wedged open." Lib. ix. c. 30. 

The same story has been told, with greater probability, of the 
monkey. [" The name of polypi has been peculiarly ascribed to 
these animals by the ancients, because of the number of feelers 
or feet of which they are all possessed, and with which they 
have a slow progressive motion : but the moderns have given the 
name of polypus to a reptile that lives in fresh water, by no 
means so large or observable. These are found at the bottom of 
wet ditches, or attached to the under-surface of the broad-leaved 
plants that grow and swim on the waters. The same difference 
holds between these and the sea-water polypi, as between all 
the productions of the land and the ocean. The marine ve- 



64 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

For now no more the sun with gleaming ray 
Through seas transparent lights him to his prey. 

getables and animals grow to a monstrous size. The eel, the 
pike, or the bream of fresh waters is but small : in the sea they 
grow to an enormous magnitude. It is so between the polypi of 
both elements. Those of the sea are found from two feet in 
length to three or four : and Pliny has even described one, the 
arms of which were no less than thirty feet long. The polypus 
contracts itself more or less in proportion as it is touched, or as 
the water is agitated in which they are seen. Warmth animates 
them, and cold benumbs them : but it requires a degree of cold 
approaching congelation, before they^are reduced to perfect in- 
activity. The arms, when the animal is not disturbed, and the 
season is not unfavourable, are thrown about in various directions 
in order to seize and entangle its prey. Sometimes three or four 
of the arms are thus employed ; while the rest are contracted, 
like the horns of a snail, within the animal's body. It seems 
capable of giving what length it pleases to these arms : it con- 
tracts and extends them at pleasure ; and stretches them only 
in proportion to the remoteness of the object it would seize. 
Some of these animals so strongly resemble a flowering vegetable 
in their forms, that they have been mistaken for such by many 
naturalists. Mr. Hughes, the author of the Natural History 
of Barbadoes, has described a species of this animal, but has 
mistaken its nature, and called it a sensitive flowering plant. He 
observed it to take refuge in the holes of rocks, and, when un- 
disturbed, to spread forth a number of ramifications, each termi- 
nated by a flowery petal, which shrunk at the approach of the hand, 
and withdrew into the hole from which it had before been seen to 
issue. This plant, however, was no other than an animal of 
the polypus kind : which is not only to be found in Barbadoes, 
but also on many parts of the coast of Cornwall, and along the 



WORKS. 65 

O'er the swarth iEthiop roils his bright career, 
And slowly gilds the Grecian hemisphere. 
And now the horned and unhorned kind 
Whose lair is in the wood, sore-famish 'd grind 
Their sounding jaws, and froz'n and quaking fly- 
Where oaks the mountain dells imbranch on high : 
They seek to couch in thickets of the glen, 
Or lurk deep-shelter'd in the rocky den. 
Like aged men who, prop'd on crutches, tread 
Tottering with broken strength and stooping head, 

shores of the Continent." Goldsmith, Animated Nature, 
vol. vi. 

The Polypus is mentioned by Homer, Odys. v. : 
As when the polypus enforced forsakes 
His rough recess, in his contracted claws 
He gripes the pebbles still to which he clung: 
So he within his lacerated grasp 
The crumbled stone retain'd, when from his hold 
The huge wave forced him, and he sank again. 

Cowper. 
Like aged men.'] In the original, rpnroh QpoTa, a three-footed 
mortal : that is, a man with a crutch : a metaphor suggested, 
probably, by the aenigma of the Sphinx. 

" What is that, which is two-footed, three-footed, and four- 
footed, yet one and the same ? (Edipus declared that the thing 
propounded to him was man : for that a man, while an infant, 
went on four : when grown up, on two ; and when old, on three : 
as using a staff through feebleness." Diodorus, Bibl. 4. 

F 



66 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

So move the beasts of earth ; and creeping low- 
Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow. 

I warn thee, now, around thy body cast, 
A thick defence, and covering from the blast : 
Let the soft cloak its woolly warmth bestow : 
The under-tunic to thy ankle flow : 
On a scant warp a woof abundant weave ; 
Thus warmly wov'n the mantling cloak receive : 
Nor shall thy limbs beneath its ample fold 
With bristling hairs start shivering to the cold. 
Shoes from the hide of a strong-dying ox 
Bind round thy feet ; lined thick with woollen socks : 

On a scant warp.] The nap is formed by the threads of the 
woof: Hesiod therefore directs the woof to be thick and strong, 
that the nap may the better exclude wet. 

A strong-dying ox.~\ This expression is borrowed from Chap- 
man. Thus we find in Homer, " a thong from a slaughtered ox." 
This is illustrated by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, 2. by the fact 
that the skins of slaughtered beasts are tougher, less flaccid, and 
less liable to be broken than those of animals which have died 
of age or distemper. The ancients, says Grsevius, made their 
shoes of the raw hide. 

mxoi, in Latin udones, were woollen socks ; worn, when abroad, 
inside the shoes ; or as substitutes for shoes, in the manner of 
slippers, when within doors and in the bed-chamber. 

Le Clerc 



WORKS. 67 

And kid-skins 'gainst the rigid season sew 
With sinew of the bull, and sheltering throw 
Athwart thy shoulders when the rains impend; 
And let a well-wrought cap thy head defend, 
And screen thine ears, while drenching showers 
descend. 

And kid-skiyis 'gainst the rigid season sea'.] This was a sort of 
rough cloak of skins common to the country people of Greece. 

Stripp'd of my garberdine of skins, at once 
I will from high leap down into the waves. 

Theocritus, Idyl. iii. 25. 

Graevius quotes Varro as authority for a similar covering being 
worn among the Romans : by soldiers in camp, by mariners, and 
poor people. 

A zcell-urought-cap .] In very ancient times the cap answered 

no other purpose for the head than the sock, which was worn 

inside the shoe, did for the foot. The helmets were lined with 

it. Of this kind was that of the helmet which Ulysses, Odys. 

x. received from Merion : 

Without it was secured 

With boar's-teeth ivory-white, inserted thick 

On all sides, and with woollen head-piece lined. 

Cowper. 

Eustathius tells us, that in after-times they gave the same 

term, anXor, to any covering for the head, and thus they ascribed 

to Ulysses a cap such as they then used. Thus as the club is the 

badge of Hercules, so is the cap of Ulysses : as appears from 

coins and other antiques. The ancient Greeks did not use any 

covering for the head : and it was from them that the Romans 

borrowed the custom of going bare-headed. They used caps 

only on journeys ; in excessive heat or cold : or in rainy weather. 

F2 



68 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Bleak is the morn, when blows the north from high ; 
Oft when the dawnlight paints the starry sky, 
A misty cloud suspended hovers o'er 
Heaven's blessed earth with fertilizing store 
Drain'd from the living streams : aloft in air 
The whirling winds the buoyant vapour bear, 
Resolved at eve in rain or gusty cold, 
As by the north the troubled rack is roll'd. 
Preventing this, the labour of the day 
Accomplish'd, homeward bend thy hastening way : 
Lest the dark cloud, with whelming rush deprest, 
Drench thy cold limbs and soak thy dripping vest. 

This winter-month with prudent caution fear : 
Severe to flocks, nor less to men severe : 
Feed thy keen husbandman with larger bread : 
With half their provender thy steers be fed : 
Them rest assists : the night's protracted length 
Recruits their vigour and supplies their strength. 
This rule observe, while still the various earth 
Gives every fruit and kindly seedling birth : 



These caps the Latins called petasos : they were a kind of broad- 
brimmed hat, like that which is observed in the figures of Mer- 
cury. Otherwise, when in the city, they merely wrapped their 
heads in the lappet of the gown. Gravius. 




WORKS. 69 

Still to the toil proportionate the cheer, 
The day to night, and equalize the year. 

When from the wintry tropic of the sun 
Full sixty days their finish'd round have run, 
Lo ! then the sacred deep Arcturus leave, 
First whole-apparent on the verge of eve. 
Through the grey dawn the swallow lifts her wing, 
Morn-plaining bird, the harbinger of spring. 

Anticipate the time : the care be thine 
An earlier day to prune the shooting vine. 
When the house-bearing snail is slowly found 
To shun the Pleiad heats that scorch the ground, 
And climb the plant's tall stem, insist no more 
To dress the vine, but give the vineyard o'er. 

The wintry tropic] The winter solstice, according to the table 
of Petavius, happened in Hesiod's time on the 30th of December. 
The acronychal rising of Arcturus took place in the 14th degree 
of Pisces, which corresponds in the calendar with the 5th of 
March. Le Clerc 

The acronychal rising of a star is when it rises at the beginning 
of night : the acronychal setting is when it sets at the end of 
night. But there are two acronychal risings and settings : the 
one when the star rises exactly as the sun sets, and sets ex- 
actly as the sun rises. This is the trite acronychal rising and 
setting, but it is invisible by reason of the day-light. The other 
is the visible or apparent acronychal rising and setting ; which is, 
when the star is actually seen in the horizon. 



70 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Whet the keen sickle, hasten every swain, 
From shady booths, from morning sleep refrain ; 
Now, in the fervour of the harvest-day, 
When the strong sun dissolves the frame away : 
Now haste a-field : now bind thy sheafy corn, 
And earn thy food by rising with the morn. 
Lo ! the third portion of thy labour's cares 
The early morn anticipating shares : 
In early morn the labour swiftly wastes : 
In early morn the speeded journey hastes ; 
The time when many a traveller tracks the plain, 
And the yoked oxen bend them to the wain. 
When the green artichoke ascending flowers, 
When, in the sultry season's toilsome hours, 
Perch'd on a branch, beneath his veiling wings 
The loud cicada shrill and frequent sings : 



The green artichoke] 2Ko\vpos is not the thistle, as has been 
commonly supposed. Pliny says of it, lib. xxii. c. 22, " The sco- 
lymos is also received for food in the East. The stalk is never 
more than a cubit in height, with scaly leaves, and a black root 
of a sweet taste." It is, therefore, the artichoke. 

The loud cicada] The interpreters translate »x tra canora, 
and Myvpnv dulcem ; and hence an idea is prevalent that Hesiod 
speaks of the cicada as having a sweet note; but of these epi- 
thets the first is properly vocal or sonorous, and the second shrill 
or stridulous. Anacreon calls the insect " wise in music," but 



WORKS. 71 

Then the plump goat a savoury food bestows, 
The poignant wine in mellowest flavour flows : 

he seems to think the note musical from its cheerful association 
with summer: 

Mortals honour thee with praise, 

Prophet sweet of summer days. 

Virgil applies to it the characteristics of hoarse and querulous. 
Eel. ii. Georgic. iii. 

" Of this genus the most common European species is the 
cicada plebeia of Linnaeus. This is the insect so often com- 
memorated by the ancient poets ; and generally confounded by 
the major part of translators with the grasshopper. It is a native 
of the warmer parts of Europe, and particularly of Italy and 
Greece : appearing in the latter months of summer, and con- 
tinuing its shrill chirping during the greatest part of the day : 
generally sitting among the leaves of trees. Notwithstanding the 
romantic attestations in honour of the cicada, it is certain that 
modern ears are offended rather than pleased with its voice ; 
which is so very strong and stridulous, that it fatigues by its in- 
cessant repetition ; and a single cicada, hung up in a cage, has 
been found to drown the voice of a whole company. The male 
cicada alone exerts this powerful note, the female being entirely 
mute. That a sound so piercing should proceed from so small a 
body may well excite our astonishment; and the curious ap- 
paratus, by which it is produced, has justly claimed the attention 
of the most celebrated investigators. Reaumur and Roesel, in 
particular, have endeavoured to ascertain the nature of the me- 
chanism by which the noise is produced; and have found that 
it proceeds from a pair of concave membranes, seated on each 
side of the first joints of the abdomen : the large concavities of 
the abdomen, immediately under the two broad lamella in the 
male insect, are also faced by a thin, pellucid, irridescent mem- 



72 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Wanton the blood then bounds in woman's veins, 
But weak of man the heat-enfeebled reins : 
Full on his brain descends the solar flame 
Unnerves the languid knees, and all the frame 
Exhaustive dries away : oh then be thine 
To sit in shade of rocks ; with Byblian wine, 

brane, serving to increase and reverberate the sound ; and a 
strong muscular apparatus is exerted for the purpose of moving 
the necessary organs." Shaw, General Zoology, vol. vi. 

The same naturalist specifies several large and elegant insects 
in this division of the genus cicada. One with the body of a 
polished black colour, marked with scarlet rings : another of a 
green hue, with transparent wings, veined also with green ; and 
a third of a fine black varied beneath with yellow streaks, and the 
wings black towards the base. 

Then the. plump goat.] This is imitated by Virgil, Georg. i. 
341: 

For then the hills with pleasing shades are crown'd, 

And sleeps are sweeter on the silken ground : 

With milder beams the sun serenely shines, 

Fat are the lambs and luscious are the wines. Dryden. 

But weak of man the heat-enfeebled reins.] Aristotle is of 
the same opinion. The curious reader may consult the Diction- 
naire de Bayle, iv. 222. Note A. 

Byblian wine.] This was so called from a region of Thrace : 
it was a thin wine, and not intoxicating. See Athenaeus, i. 31. 
It is mentioned by Theocritus, Idyl. xiv. 15 : 

I open'd them a flask of Byblian wine 
Well-odour'd : with the flavour of four years. 



WORKS. 73 

And goat's milk, stinted from the kid, to slake 
Thy thirst, and eat the shepherd's creamy cake ; 
The flesh of new-dropt kids and youngling cows, 
That, never teeming, cropp'd the forest browse. 
With dainty food so saturate thy soul, 
And drink the wine dark-mantling in the bowl : 
While in the cool and breezy gloom reclined 
Thy face is turn'd to catch the breathing wind ; 
And feel the freshening brook, whose living stream 
Glides at thy foot with clear and sparkling gleam : 
Three parts its waters in thy cup should flow, 
The fourth with brimming wine may mingled glow. 

When first Orion's beamy strength is born, 
Let then thy labourers thresh the sacred corn : 
Smooth be the level floor, on gusty ground, 
Where winnowing gales may sweep in eddies round. 
Hoard in thy ample bins the meted grain : 
And now, as I advise, thy hireling swain 

Orion's beamy strength.'] In the table Qf Petavius the bright 
star of the foot of Orion makes its heliacal rise in the 18th 
degree of Cancer: that is, on the 12th of July. Le Clerc. 

On gusty ground.] So Varro, de Re Rustica, lib. i. c. 51. " The 
threshing-floor should be in a field, on higher ground, where the 
wind might blow over it." See also Columella, lib. xi. c. 20. 

Thy hireling swain 

From forth thy house dismiss. ] e^a aomov n-onwSa* 



74 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

From forth thy house dismiss, when all the store 

Of kindly food is laid within thy door : 

And to thy service let a female come ; 

But childless, for a child were burtliensome. 

Keep, too, a sharp-tooth'd dog, nor thrifty spare 

To feed his fierceness high with generous fare : 

Lest the day-slumbering thief thy nightly door 

Wakeful besiege, and pilfer from thy store. 

For ox and mule the yearly fodder lay 

Within thy loft ; the heapy straw and hay : 

This care dispatch'd, refresh the bending knees 

Of thy tired hinds, and give thy unyoked oxen ease. 

is rendered by Grsevius comparare slbi servum domo ca* 
rentem : and Schrevelius explains the passage to mean that 
" you should seek out a servant who, having no house of his own 
to look after, could direct his whole attention to your concerns." 
80 when the harvest is over, and the corn laid up in the granaries, 
he is to look out for a labourer ! Was there ever a direction so 
unmeaning as this? I translate the words, {meo periculo) "ser- 
vum operarium e domo dimitte." 

Keep, too, a sharp-tooth'd dog.] Virgil has a more poetical 
passage on the same subject, Georg. iii. 404 : 

Nor last forget thy faithful dogs : but feed 

With fattening whey the mastiff's generous breed 

And Spartan race, who for the fold's relief 

Will prosecute with cries the nightly thief, 

Repulse the prowling wolf, and hold at bay 

The mountain robbers rushing to the prey. Dryden. 



WORKS. 7/5 

When Sirius and Orion the mid-sky 
Ascend, and on Arcturus looks from high 
The rosy-finger'd morn, the vintage calls : 
Then bear the gather'd grapes within thy walls. 
Ten days and nights exposed the clusters lay 
Bask'd in the lustre of each mellowing day : 
Let five their circling round successive run, 
Whilst lie thy frails o'ershaded from the sun : 
The sixth in vats the gifts of Bacchus press ; 
Of Bacchus gladdening earth with store of pleasantness. 

But when beneath the skies on morning's brink 
The Pleiads, Hyads, and Orion sink ; 
Know then the ploughing and the seed-time near : 
Thus well-disposed shall glide thy rustic year. 

But if thy breast with nautical desire 
The perilous deep's uncertain gains inspire, 
When chased by strong Orion down the heaven 
Sink the seven stars in gloomy ocean driven ; 



On Arcturus looks from high 



The rosy-jingerd morn. ] By this is understood 

the heliacal rising of Arcturus, which happened in the time of 
Hesiod about the 21st of September. Le Clerc. 
■ On morning's brink 

The Pleiads, Hyads, and Orion sink.] This is the morning, 
or cosmical, setting of the Pleiads ; which, according to Petavius, 
happened some time in November. Le Clerc 



76 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Then varying winds in gustful eddies roar : 

Then to black ocean trust thy ships no more : 

But heedful care to this my caution yield, 

And, as I bid thee, labour safe the field. 

Hale on firm land the ship : with stones made fast 

Against the staggering force of humid-blowing blast: 

Draw from its keel the peg, lest rotting rain 

Suck'd in the hollow of the hold remain : 

Within thy house the tackling order'd be. 

And furl thy vessel's wings that skimm'd the sea : 

The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend, 

And calm and navigable seas attend. 

Then launch the rapid bark : fit cargo load, 

And freighted rich repass the liquid road. 

Then varying zcinds.~\ Virgil cautions the navigator against the 
appearances of the sun, Georg. i. 455 : 

If dusky spots are varied on his brow 

And streak'd with red a troubled colour show: 

That sullen mixture shall at once declare 

Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war : 

What desperate madman then would venture o'er 

The frith, or haul his cables from the shore ? Dryden. 

Black ocean.] Omm ttgvt&j, wine-coloured. This evidently 
means black : as the Greek poets apply the epithet black to wine. 
Hesiod has a^ova, otvw, black coloured wine. The sense of this 
latter epithet is deduced from the blackness caused by burning : 
as a&a) is to burn. 



WORKS. 77 

Oh witless Perses ! thus for honest gain, 
Thus did our mutual father plough the main. 
Erst, from iEolian Cuma's distant shore, 
Hither in sable ship his course he bore ; 
Through the wide seas his venturous way he took ; 
No rich revenues ; prosperous ease forsook : 
His wandering course from poverty began, 
The visitation sent from heaven to man : 
Ascra's sad hamlet he his dwelling chose 
Where nigh impending Helicon arose : 
In summer irksome and in winter drear, 
Nor ever genial through the joyless year. 

Each labour, Perses ! let the seasons guide : 
But o'er thy navigation chief preside : 
Decline a slender bark : intrust thy freight 
To the strong vessel of a larger rate : 

In summer irksome.] This inconvenience arose from the site of 
the place : as the scholiasts Proclus and Tzetzes relate : for by 
the neighbourhood of so high a mountain as Helicon, the 
breezes, which might have alleviated the summer heat, were in- 
tercepted : and in winter, the rays of the sun were excluded from 
the village ; which was also exposed to torrents from the melting 
of the snow. Robinson. 

Decline <l slender bark.] Atv-jy, commend. This passage is 
quoted by Plutarch in illustration of words used in a different 
sense from what they seem to import. Praise means refuse. 
The same idiom occurs in Virgil's second Georgic : 



78 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The larger cargo doubles every gain, 
Let but the winds their adverse blasts restrain. 
If thy rash thoughts on merchandise be placed, 
Lest debts ensnare or joyless hunger waste, 
Learn now the courses of the roaring sea, 
Though ships and voyages are strange to me. 
Ne'er o'er the sea's broad way my course I bore 
Save once from Aulis to th' Eubcean shore : 
From Aulis, where the Greeks in days of yore, 
The winds awaiting, kept the harbouring shore : 
From sacred Greece a mighty army there 
Lay bound for Troy, wide famed for women fair. 

Commend the large excess 
Of spacious vineyards : cultivate the less. Dryden. 

O'er the sea's broad way.~] From the following extracts it will 
not appear extraordinary that this prodigious voyage of Hesiod 
should have afforded him but little opportunity of acquiring a 
practical knowledge of navigation. On an inspection of the 
map we must, however, concede that the passage from Aulis 
direct to Chalcis is somewhat wider than the part of the strait 
crossed by a draw-bridge. 

" Elle (Chalcis) est situee dans un endroit ou a la faveur de 
deux promontoires qui s'avancent de part et d'autre, les cotes de 
file touchent presque a celles de Beotie. 

" Ce leger intervalle, qu'on appelle Euripe, est en partie comble 
par une digue. A chacune de ses extremites est une tour pour 
le defendre, et un pont-lever pour laisser passer un vaisseau." 

Baethelemy, Voyages d'Anacharsis, torn. ii. p. 82. 



WORKS. 79 

I pass'd to Chalcis, where around the grave 

Of king Amphidamus, in combat brave, 

His valiant sons had solemn games decreed, 

And heralds loud proclaim'd full many a meed : 

There, let me boast, that victor in the lay 

I bore a tripod ear'd, my prize, away : 

This to the maids of Helicon I vow'd 

Where first their tuneful inspiration flow'd. 

Thus far in ships does my experience rise ; 

Yet bold I speak the wisdom of the skies ; 

Th' inspiring Muses to my lips have given 

The lore of song, and strains that breathe of heaven. 

When from the summer tropic fifty days 
Have rolFd, when summer's time of toil decays : 

Where first their tuneful inspiration flow' d.~\ That is, on mount 
Helicon. Both Le Clerc and Robinson unaccountably refer the 
terra sv3y, where, to Chalcis : and regard this passage as con- 
tradictory to that in the proem to the Theogony : whereas the 
one confirms the other. 

When from the summer-tropic fifty days 

Have rolVd. ] If no verses be 

wanting here, Hesiod truly needs not boast of his skill in 
nautical affairs. For what can be more absurd than to confine 
all navigation within fifty days, and those beginning from the 
summer-solstice; especially as the summer solstice fell on the 
3d of July ? I should suppose that there was a deficiency of two 
verses to this effect : 



80 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Then is the season fair to spread the sail : 
Nor then thy ship shall founder in the gale 
And seas o'erwhelm the crew : unless the Power, 
Who shakes the shores with waves, have will'd their 

mortal hour : 
Or he th' immortals' king require their breath, 
Whose hands the issues hold of life and death 
For good and evil men : but now the seas 
Are dangerless, and clear the calmy breeze. 
Then trust the winds, and let thy vessel sweep 
With all her freight the level of the deep. 
But rapidly retrace thy homeward way 
Nor till the season of new wine delay: 
Late autumn's torrent showers : bleak winter's sweep : 
The south-blast ruffling strong the tossing deep : 
When air comes rushing in autumnal rain, 
And curls with many a ridge the troubled main. 

Before the summer-tropic fifty days 

Thy keel may safely plough the azure ways. 

The similarity of the lines may have caused the copyist's 
omission of the two former. I am aware that the art of navi- 
gation was in that age imperfect : but if sea-faring men had learnt 
from experience that navigation was safe fifty days after the 
summer solstice, they could have learnt from the same teacher that 
it was equally safe fifty days before it : namely, in the months of 
May and June. Le Clerc. 



WORKS. 81 

Men, too, may sail in spring : when first the crow 
Imprinting with light steps the sands below, 
As many thinly-scatter'd leaves are seen 
To clothe the fig-tree's top with tender green. 
This vernal voyage practicable seems, 
And pervious are the boundless ocean-streams : 
I praise it not : for thou with anxious mind 
Must hasty snatch th' occasion of the wind. 
The drear event may baffle all thy care ; 
Yet thus, even thus, will human folly dare. 
Of wretched mortals lo ! the soul is gain : 
But death is dreadful midst the whelming main. 
These counsels lay to heart ; and, warn'd by me, 
Trust not thy whole precarious wealth to sea, 
Tost in the hollow keel : a portion send ; 
Thy larger substance let the shore defend. 
Wretched the losses of the ocean fall, 
When on a fragile plank embark'd thy all : 
And wretched when thy sheaves o'erload the wain, 
And the crash'd axle spoils the scatter'd grain. 

Men, too, may sail in spring.] What the poet says here of a 
spring voyage, I understand of that which may be made in the 
month of April : which is not much less liable to gales and 
storms than even the winter months. Certainly it was in April 
that the fig-tree began to be in leaf. Le Clerc 

G 



i 



v\ 



82 REMAINS OP HESIOD. 

The golden mean of conduct should confine 
Our every aim ; be moderation thine. 

Take to thy house a woman for thy bride 
When in the ripeness of thy manhood's pride : 
Thrice ten thy sum of years ; the nuptial prime ; 
Nor fall far short, nor far exceed the time. 
Four years the ripening virgin should consume, 
And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom. 
A virgin choose : and mould her manners chaste : 
Chief be some neighbouring maid by thee embraced : 
Look circumspect and long : lest thou be found 
The merry mock of all the dwellers round. 
No better lot has Providence assign'd 
Than a fair woman with a virtuous mind : 
Nor can a worse befall, then when thy fate 
Allots a worthless, feast-contriving mate : 
She, with no torch of mere material flame, 
Shall burn to tinder thy care- wasted frame : 
Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within, 
And age unripe in bloom of years begin. 

And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom.] She begins to bloom 
in her twelfth year. Let her wed in the fifth year of her puberty; 
that is, in her sixteenth. Guietus. 

Robinson, not considering the difference of climate, supposes 
that the fourteenth year is the first of her puberty, and that she 
is directed to wed in her nineteenth. 

Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within.] A virtuous wo- 




WORKS. 83 

Th* unsleeping vengeance heed of heaven on high. — 
None as a friend should with a brother vie : 
But if like him thou hold another dear, 
Let no offences on thy side appear : 
Nor lie with idle tongue : if he begin 
Offence of word and deed, chastise his sin 

man is a crown to her husband, but she that maketh ashamed is 
as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs, xii. 4. 

Nor lie with idle tongue.^ Devise not a lie against thy brother, 
neither do the like to thy friend. Ecclesiasticus, vii. 12. 

Chastise his sinJ] Far more liberal is the counsel of the son of 
Sirach : 

Admonish a friend : it may be, he hath not done it ; and if he 
have done it, that he may do it no more. 

Admonish thy friend : it may be he hath not said it ; and if 
he have, that he speak it not again. 

Admonish a friend, for many times it is a slander ; and be- 
lieve not every tale. 

There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart : 
and who is he, that hath not offended with his tongue ? 

Ecclesiasticus, xix. 

Cicero says elegantly, " Care is to be taken lest friendships 
convert themselves even into grievous enmities : whence arise 
bickerings, backbitings, contumelies : these are yet to be borne, 
if they be bearable : and this compliment should be paid to the 
ancient friendship, that the person in fault should be he that in- 
flicts the injury, not he that suffers it." De Amicitia, c. 21. 

The author of the Pythagorean " golden verses" has a line which 
deserves indeed to be written in letters of gold : 

Hate not thy tried friend for a slender fault. 
G 2 



84 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Once for each act and word ; but if he grieve, 
And make atonement, straight his love receive : 
Wretched ! his friends who changes to and fro ! 
Let not thy face thy mind's deep secrets show. 
Be not the host of many nor of none : 
The good revile not, and the wicked shun. 
Rebuke not want, that wastes the spirit dry ; 
It is the gift of blessed gods on high. 

Lo ! the best treasure is a frugal tongue : 
The lips of moderate speech with grace are hung : 
The evil-speaker shall perpetual fear 
Return of evil ringing in his ear. 

When many guests combine in common fare 
Be not morose nor grudge thy liberal share : 

This is probably one of the maxims of Hesiod which induced 
La Harpe to observe, " Cette morale n'est pas toujours la meil- 
leure du monde.'' Lycee, torn. i. Hesiode. 

Rebuke not want.] Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his 
Maker. Proverbs, xvii. 5. 

Lo / the best treasure is a frugal tongue.] In the multitude of 
words there wanteth not sin : but he that refraineth his lips is 
wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver. 

Proverbs, x. 19, 20. 

When many guests combine.] There were two sorts of enter- 
tainments among the ancient Grecians : the first was provided 
at the expense of one man, the second was at the common 
charge of all present: at the latter some of the guests occasionally 



WORKS. 85 

When all contributing the feast unite, 
Great is the pleasure and the cost is light. 

When the libation of the morn demands 
The sable wine, forbear with unwash'd hands 
To lift the cup : with ear averted Jove 
Shall spurn thy prayer, and every god above. 

Forbear to let your water flow away 
Turn'd upright tow'rds the sun's all-seeing ray : 
E'en when his splendour sets, till morn has glow'd 
Take heed ; nor sprinkle, as you walk, the road, 
Nor the road-side ; nor bare affront the sight ; 
For there are gods who watch and guard the night. 

contributed more than their exact proportion. These were gene- 
rally most frequented, and are recommended by the wise men of 
those times as most apt to promote friendship and good neigh- 
bourhood. They were for the most part managed with more order 
and decency, because the guests who ate of their own collation 
were usually more sparing than when they were feasted at another 
man's expense; as we are informed by Eustathius. So different 
was their behaviour at the public feasts from that at private en 
tertainments, that Minerva, in Homer, having seen the intempe- 
rance and unseemly actions of Penelope's courtiers, concludes 
their entertainment was not provided at the common charge. 

t Behold I here 

A banquet, or a nuptial feast ? for these 
Meet not by contribution to regale; 
With such brutality and din they hold 
Their riotous banquet. Cowper, Odyss. 1. 

Potter, Archaologia Graca. 



8'6 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The holy man discreet sits decently, 

And to some sheep-fold's fenced wall draws nigh. 

From rites of love unclean the hearth forbear, 
Nor sit beside ungirt, for household gods are there. 

Leave not the funeral feast to sow thy race ; 
From the gods' banquet seek thy bride's embrace. 

Whene'er thy feet the river-ford essay, 
Whose flowing current winds its limpid way, 
Thy hands amidst the pleasant waters lave, 
And lowly gazing on the beauteous wave 
Appease the river-god : if thou perverse 
Pass with unsprinkled hands, a heavy curse 
Shall rest upon thee from th' observant skies, 
And after-woes retributive arise. 

When in the fane the feast of gods is laid, 
Ne'er to thy five-branch'd hand apply the blade 

The feast of gods.'] A sacrifice was followed by a general ban- 
quet, and the tables were spread in the temple itself. The gods 
were supposed invisibly to be present. Thus we are to explain 
their visit to the ./Ethiopians in Homer, II. i : 

For to the banks of the Oceanus 
Where ZEthiopia holds a feast to Jove 
He journied yesterday; with whom the gods 
Went also. Cowper. 

Ne'er to thy five-branch? d hand apply the blade.] This precept 
is somewhat obscurely expressed, like the symbols of Pythagoras : 
that things of no value might appear to involve a mysterious im- 



WORKS. S7 

Of sable iron ; from the fresh forbear 
The dry excrescence at the board to pare. 

Ne'er let thy hand the wine-filled flaggon rest 
Upon the goblet's edge ; th' unwary guest 
May from thy fault his own disaster drink, 
For evil omens lurk around the brink. 

Ne'er in the midst th' unfinished house forego, 
Lest there perch'd lonely croak the garrulous crow. 

portance. Hesiod seems to intimate that we should not choose 
the precise time of the feast for washing the hands and paring the 
nails, but sit down to table with hands ready washed. No per- 
son, indeed, even at a private entertainment, would have thought 
of cutting his nails at table, if he did not wish the parings to fly 
into the dishes, which I conceive could not have been more 
agreeable to the Greeks than to ourselves. Le Clerc. 

Upon the goblet's edge.] Robinson supposes a sentiment of 
hospitality; that the flaggon is not to stand still. Others suppose 
e»oj£ou to be a bowl used only in libation, and which it was in- 
decent to prostitute to common use. But for this there seems 
not the least authority. 

" All the allegorical glosses invented by the latter Greeks to 
varnish over the doting superstitions of their ancestors are utterly 
destitute of verisimilitude. Even in our day traces of the old 
superstitions remain in many places. There are people, for 
instance, who think it a bad omen if the loaf be inverted, so that 
the flat part is uppermost ; if the knives be laid across, or the 
salt spilt on the table. It would be just as easy to find a mystical 
sense in these, as in the idle fancies of Hesiod." Le Clerc. 



88 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Ne'er from unhallow'd vessels hasty feed, 
Nor lave therein; for thou mayst rue the deed. 

Set not a twelve-day or a twelve-month boy 
On moveless stones ; they shall his strength destroy. 

Ne'er in the female baths thy limbs immerse ; 
In its own time the guilt shall bring the curse. 

Ne'er let the mystic sacrifices move 
Deriding scorn ; but dread indignant Jove. 

Unhallow'd vessels.'] There is here an allusion to the ancient 
custom of purifying new vessels and consecrating them to a happy 
use; or, as we say, blessing them. Guietus. 

Le Clerc imagines a prohibition against seizing the flesh from 
the tripods before a sacrifice, which he illustrates by the offence 
of the sons of Eli, 1 Sam. ii. 13 ; but what has the bathing to 
do with this ? 

On moveless stones.] By Muvnra, immoveable things, he ap- 
pears to mean the ground or stones, which are cold and hard ; or 
by sitting on immoveable things we may understand habits of 
sloth. Guietus. 

Proclus interprets the word to mean sepulchres, which it was 
unlawful to move : but on the same grounds it may be interpreted 
land-marks. One should rather understand by it any sort of 
stones ; Hesiod preferring that a boy should be placed on wooden 
slabs that might be moved about. But the being placed on a 
stone could not be more hurtful to him on the twelfth day or 
month than at any other period of his childhood. This was a 
mere superstition; and we may as well seek to interpret the 
dreams of a man who is light-headed. Le Clerc 



DAYS. 89 

Ne'er with unseemly deeds the fountains stain, 
Or limpid rivers flowing to the main. 

Do thus : and still with all thy dint of mind 
Avoid that evil rumour of mankind; 
Easy the burthen at the first to bear, 
And light when lifted as impassive air ; 
But scarce can human strength the load convey, 
Or shake th' intolerable weight away. 
Swift rumour hastes nor ever wholly dies, 
But borne on nations' tongues a very goddess flies. 



DAYS. 



Thy household teach a decent heed to pay, 
And well observe each Jove-appointed day. 

The thirtieth of the moon inspect with care 
Thy servants' tasks and all their rations share 
What time the people to the courts repair. 



<} 



The thirtieth of the moon.] That is, the last day of each month; 
for the most ancient Greeks, as well as the Orientals, employed 
lunar months of thirty days. Le Clerc. 

The Greek month was divided into T ? »a tampspa, three decades 



90 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

These days obey the all-wise Jove's behest : 

The first new moon, the fourth, the seventh is blest : 

Phoebus, on this, from mild Latona born, 

The golden-sworded god, beheld the morn. 

The eighth, nor less the ninth, with favouring skies, 

Speeds of th' increasing month each rustic enterprise ; 

And on th' eleventh let thy flocks be shorn, 

And on the twelfth be reap'd thy laughing corn : 

Both days are good : yet is the twelfth confest 

More fortunate, with fairer omen blest. 

of days. The first was called y.wog ap^uevy or iray-avy; the second, 

fxrmoq [jlko-uvtoc; j and the third, fAnvoq (p&ivovrot;, TTcivcfxzvii, or XnyovTcs : 

the beginning month, the middle month, the declining or ending 
month. The words were put in the genitive case because some 
day was placed before them. Thus the middle-first or first of the 
second decade was the eleventh of the whole month; and the first 
of the end, or of the last decade, was the twenty-first: the 
twenty-ninth was called Ettas fxeyaXn, the great twentieth. The 
French Republican calendar was formed on the Greek model. 

What time the people to the courts rep air. ] The forenoon was 
distinguished by the time of the court of judicature sitting, as in 
this passage of Hesiod ; the afternoon by the time of its breaking 
up, as in the following of Homer : 

At what hour the judge, 
After decision made of numerous strifes 
Between young candidates for honour, leaves 
The forum, for refreshment's sake at home. 

Cowpek, Odyss. xii. 



DAYS. 91 

On this the air-suspended spider treads 
In the full noon his fine and self-spun threads ; 
And the wise emmet, tracking dark the plain, 
Heaps provident the store of gather'd grain. 
On this let careful woman's nimble hand 
Throw first the shuttle and the web expand. 

On the thirteenth forbear to sow the grain ; 
But then the plant shall not be set in vain. 
The sixteenth profitless to plants is deem'd 
Auspicious to the birth of men esteem'd ; 
But to the virgin shall unprosperous prove, 
Then born to light or join'd in wedded love. 

So to the birth of girls with adverse ray 
The sixth appears, an unpropitious day: 
But then the swain may fence his wattled fold, 
And cut his kids and rams ; male births shall then be 

bold. 
This day is fond of biting gibes and lies, 
And jocund tales and whisper'd sorceries. 

Cut on the eighth the goat and lowing steer 
And hardy mule ; and when the noon shines clear. 
Seek on the twenty-ninth to sow thy race, 
For wise shall be the fruit of thy embrace. 



92 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The tenth propitious lends its natal ray 
To men, to gentle maids the fourteenth day : 
Tame too thy sheep on this auspicious morn, 
And steers of flexile hoof and wreathed horn, 
And labour-patient mules; and mild command 
Thy sharp-tooth'd dog with smoothly flattering hand. 

The fourth and twenty-fourth no grief should prey 
Within thy breast, for holy either day. 

Fourth of the moon lead home thy blooming bride, 
And be the fittest auguries descried. 

Beware the fifth, with horror fraught and wo : 
'Tis said the furies walk their round below 
Avenging the dread oath ; whose awful birth 
From discord rose, to scourge the perjured earth. 

Beware the fifth.'] Virgil copies this, as well as some other of 
these superstitions, Georg. i. 275: 

For various works behold the moon declare 
Some days more fortunate : the fifth beware : 
Pale Orcus and the Furies then sprang forth — 



Next to the tenth the seventh to luck inclines 
For taming oxen and for planting vines : 
Then best her woof the prudent housewife weaves : 
Better for flight the ninth; averse to thieves. 

Wabton. 



DAYS. 



93 



On the smooth threshing-floor, the seventeenth 
morn, 
Observant throw the sheaves of sacred corn : 
For chamber furniture the timber hew, 
And blocks for ships with shaping axe subdue. 

The fourth upon the stocks thy vessel lay, 
Soon with light keel to skim the watery way. 
The nineteenth mark among the better days 
When past the fervour of the noon-tide blaze. 

Harmless the ninth : 'tis good to plant the earth, 
And fortunate each male and female birth. 

Few know the twenty-ninth, nor heed the rules 
To broach their casks, and yoke their steers and mules, 
And fleet-hoof 'd steeds ; and on dark ocean's way 
Launch the oar'd galley ; few will trust the day. 

Pierce on the fourth thy cask ; the fourteenth prize 
As holy ; and when morning paints the skies 
The twenty-fourth is best ; (few this have known ;) 
But worst of days when noon has fainter grown. 
These are the days of which the careful heed 
Each human enterprise will favouring speed : 
Others there are, which intermediate fall, 
Mark'd with no auspice and unomen'd all : 



94 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And these will some, and those will others praise, 
But few are versed in mysteries of days. 
In this a step-mother's stern hate we prove, 
In that the mildness of a mother's love. 

Oh fortunate the man ! oh blest is he, 
Who skill'd in these fulfils his ministry : 
He to whose note the auguries are given, 
No rite transgress'd, and void of blame to heav'n. 



%\)t Cfjeogonp. 



THE THEOGONY. 



€f)e Argument 

THE proem is a rhapsody in honour of the Muses. It opens 
with a description of their solemn dances on mount Helicon, 
and of the hymns which they sing during their nightly visitation 
of earth. The poet then relates their appearance to himself, 
and his consequent inspiration; describes their employments 
in heaven ; their birth and dignity; their influence on kings or 
magistrates, minstrels and bards; and finishes with invoking 
their assistance and proposing his subject. The Cosmogony, 
or origin of nature, then commences, and blends into the 
Theogony, or generation of gods, which is continued through 
the whole poem, and concludes with the race of demi-gods, or 
those born from the loves of goddesses and mortals. The fol- 
lowing legendary traditions are interwoven episodically with 
the main subject. I. The imprisonment of his children by 
Uranus or Heaven in a subterranean cave; and the conse- 
quent conspiracy of Earth and Cronus, or Saturn. II. The 
concealment of the infant Jupiter. III. The impiety and pu- 
nishment of Prometheus. IV. The creation of Pandora, or 
Woman. V. The war of the Gods and Titans. VI. The 
combat of Jupiter with the giant Typhous. 






THE THEOGONY. 



JlJEGIN we from the Muses oh my song ! 
Muses of Helicon : their dwelling-place 
The mountain vast and holy : where around 
The altar of high Jove and fountain dark 
From azure depth, they lightly leap in dance 
With delicate feet ; and having duly bathed 
Their tender bodies in Permessian streams, 
In springs that gush'd fresh from the courser's hoof, 

They lightly leap in dance.] This representation of the Muses 
is taken from the ancient custom of dancing round the altar 
during sacrifice. 

In springs that gush'd fresh from the courser's hoof.] Hippos 
was an ^Egyptian title of the sun. This ancient term became 
obsolete, and was misapplied by the Greeks, who uniformly ap- 
plied it to horses. Hippocrene was a sacred fountain denomi- 
nated from the god of light, who was the patron of verse and 
science. But by the Greeks it was referred to an animal, and 
supposed to have been produced by the hoof of a horse. Other 
nations, says Athanasius, reverenced rivers and fountains : but 
above all people in the world the Egyptians held them in the 
highest honour, and esteemed them as divine. From hence the 
custom passed westward to Greece, Italy, and the extremities of 
H 2 

LOFC. 



100 REMAINS OF HKSIOD. 

Or blest Olmius' waters, many a time 

Upon the topmost ridge of Helicon 

Their elegant and amorous dances thread, 

And smite the earth with strong-rebounding feet. 

Thence breaking forth tumultuous, and enwrapt 

With the deep mist of air, they onward pass 

Nightly, and utter, as they sweep on high, 

A voice in stilly darkness beautiful. 

They hymn the praise of iEgis-wielding Jove, 

And Juno, named of Argos, who august 

In golden sandals walks : and her, whose eyes 

Glitter with azure light, Minerva born 

From Jove : Apollo, sire of prophecy, 

And Dian gladden'd by the twanging bow : 

Earth-grasping Neptune, shaker of earth's shores: 

Europe. One reason for holding waters so sacred arose from a 
notion that they were gifted with supernatural powers. Bryant. 
Sire of prophecy.] Phoebus is thought to be derived from <J>io? 
/Sjy, light of life : but the Greeks always associated with the 
name the prophetic attribute of Apollo : hence they formed from 
it the word £«£«£&•, to prophecy : as (Scm-xzw, to celebrate orgies 
or madden, is formed from $M , .yj>s'. like the debacchor of the 
Latins. Lycophron, v. 6 : 

From foaming mouth with laurel fed 
She pour'd the voice of prophecy. 



THE THEOGONY. 101 

Majestic Themis and Dione fair : 

And Venus twinkling bland her tremulous lids : 

Hebe, her brows with golden fillet bound : 

Morn, the vast Sun, and the resplendent Moon : 

Latona and Japetus : and him 

Of crooked wisdom, Saturn : and the Earth : 

And the huge Ocean, and the sable Night 

And all the sacred race of deities t 

Existing ever. They to Hesiod erst 

Have taught their stately song : the whilst he fed 

His lambs beneath the holy Helicon. 

And Venus twinkling bland her tremulous lids.] E\utcfae<pa?oi; 
is explained by Guietus arcuatis superciliis : so Creech, in his 
translation of a chapter of Plutarch's Morals, where the verse is 
quoted ; 

And Venus beauteous with her bending brows. 

But the Greek for an eyebrow is xppuc. Robinson more properly 
interprets it orbiculatis palpebris, with semicircular eye-lids : 
after the old scholiast ; who conceives it a metaphor drawn from 
£X»£ : the bending tendril of ivy or the vine. Le Clerc explains it 
roolubilibus palpebris : and is supported by Graevius, who quotes 
Petronius in illustration of the peculiar propriety of the epithet 
as applied to Venus : 

Blandos oculos et inquietos, 
Et quadam propria nota loquaces. 

Soft and ever restless eyes, 
Still talkative, with language all their own> 

eus-o-u is circumvolvo, to roll about. 



102 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And thus the goddesses, th' Olympian maids 
Whose sire is Jove, first haiPd me in their speech ; 
" Shepherds ! that tend in fields the fold ; ye shames ! 
Ye fleshly appetites ! the Muses hear : 
'Tis we can utter fictions veil'd like truths, 
Or, if we list, speak truths without a veil." 

So said the daughters of the mighty Jove, 
Sooth-speaking maids : and gave unto my hand 
A rod of marvellous growth, a laurel-bough 

Ye fleshly appetites.'] This degrading address seems to betray 
a modern hand. If the proem be genuine, the shepherd's occu- 
pation must have degenerated in the time of Hesiod from its 
ancient honourable character. But it is not likely that an agri- 
cultural poet should speak of husbandmen in these debasing 
terms. Le Clerc's apology, that revilings such as these belong to 
the manners of primeval simplicity, does not appear very satis- 
factory. The poet, whoever he was, meant the address, probably, 
as an exhortation to higher pursuits. 

A laurel bough.] Salmasius observes that they who aspired to 
skill in divination, chewed the leaf of the laurel. Its poisonous 
quality produced a preternatural action on the nerves, and a con- 
vulsion and frothing at the mouth, favourable to the idea of being 
possessed or inspired. As poets feigned a kind of divination, 
and a knowledge of supernatural things, the laurel was equally 
a symbol of poesy and prophecy : and held sacred to Phoebus, 
the god of verse and divination. We find from Pausanias that 
those poets who did not play on the lyre held a laurel-bough in 
their hand, during their public recitations, as the badge of their 
profession. Hence probably the term " rhapsodist : " ith, prfte 



THE THEOGONY. 103 

Of blooming verdure ; and within me breathed 
A heavenly voice, that I might utter forth 
All past and future things : and bade me praise 
The blessed race of ever-living gods : 
And ever first and last the Muses sing. 

Away then — why this tale of oaks and rocks ? 

afoiv, * to sing to the branch . " and a rhapsody seems to have 
designated such a portion of verses as the bard would recite at 
one time. Salmasius seems therefore mistaken in deriving the 
word from pawTeiv ra? nhtf, stitching together songs : in allusion to 
the centos which the Homeric rhapsodists were accustomed to 
recite from the works of Homer : although the derivation appears 
countenanced by Pindar's expression of pavruv inim aoifct, singers 
of tissued verses. 

This tale of' oaks.] This seems to have been a proverbial ex- 
pression to signify any idle tale or preamble. The Scholiasts 
illustrate it from Odyssey xvii. 163, where Penelope asks Ulysses, 
vhom she does not yet recognise, " whence he is ? " and observes, 
Thou comest not from some ancient oak or rock : 

in allusion to the fable of men born from trees : originating, 
possibly, in children being found exposed in hollow trees and 
cavities of rocks. But there is another passage in Homer more 
to the purpose, II. xx. 126 : 

It is no time from oak or hollow rock 

With him to parley, as a nymph and swain, 

A nymph and swain soft parley mutual hold. Cowper. 

Mr. Bryant explains this passage in Homer by the traditionary 
reverence paid" to caverns : which in the first ages were deemed 
oracular temples : whence persons entered into compacts under 



104? REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Begin we from the Muses oh my song ! 

They the great spirit of their father Jove 

Delight in heaven : their tongues symphonious breathe 

All past, all present, and all future things : 

Sweet, inexhaustible, from every mouth 

That voice flows on : the Thunderer's palace laughs 

With scatter'd melody of honied sounds 

From the breathed voice of goddesses, and all 

The snow-topp'd summits of Olympus ring, 

The mansions of immortals. They send forth 

Their undecaying voice, and in their songs 

Proclaim before all themes the race of gods 

rocks and oaks as places of security. But surely there is no 
need to go back to the first ages, or to dive into traditional su- 
perstitions for the solution of a circumstance so extremely ob- 
vious, as that of two lovers conversing in the shade. Harmer in 
his " Illustrations of the Classics," vol.iii. of his "Observations 
on Scripture," renders airo fyyor, on account of an oak : instead 
of from an oak : " when people meet each other on account of 
some rock or some tree which they happen upon in travelling." 
But the alteration is quite unnecessary : the word from perhaps 
indicates that one is resting under the tree, while the other is 
passing by. The adage in Hesiod is expressed " around an oak : " 
which implies a number of persons. The rock associated with 
the oak marks the peculiar climate of Greece and the East. 
The shade cast by a rock is described by Eastern travellers as 
singularly cool. 



q 



THE THEOGONY. 10/5 

From the beginning : the majestic race, 

Whom earth and awful heaven endow'd with life : 

And all the deities who sprang from these, 

Givers of blessings. Then again they change 

The strain to Jove, the sire of gods and men : 

Him praise the choral goddesses : him first 

And last : with rising and with ending song : 

How excellent he is above all gods, 

And in his power most mighty. Once again 

They sing the race of men, and giants strong ; 

And soothe the soul of Jupiter in heaven. 

They, daughters of high Jove : Olympian maids > 

Whom erst Mnemosyne, protecting queen 

Of rich Eleuther's fallows, in embrace 

With Jove their sire amidst Pieria's groves 

Conceived : of ills forgetfulness ; to cares 

Rest : thrice three nights did counsel-shaping Jove 

Melt in her arms, apart from eyes profane 

Of all immortals to the sacred couch 

Ascending : and when now the year was full, 

When moons had wax'd and waned, and reasons roll'd, 



Pieria's groves.] The Pierians were celebrated for their skill 
in music and poetry. Hence Pieria came to be regarded as the 
birth place of the Muses. Bryant. 



' 



106 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And days were number'd, she, some space remote 
From where Olympus highest towers in snow, 
Bare the nine maids, with souls together knit 
In harmony : whose thought is only song : 
Within whose bosoms dwells th' unsorrowing mind. 
There on the mount they shine in troops of dance, 
And dwell in beautified abodes : and nigh 

Bare the nine maids.'] The origin of verse itself, which is to be 
sought in the necessity of some mechanical help for the memory 
at an aera when letters were not invented, and every thing de- 
pended on oral tradition, obviously accounts for the fiction of 
memory being the mother of the Muses. But there is a farther 
reason. The ancient temples were the depositaries of all tradi- 
tionary knowledge. We are told by Homer that the voice of the 
Syrens was enchanting, but their knowledge of the past equally 
so. The Syrens appear to have been merely priestesses of one 
of this description of temples, which stood in Sicily, and was 
erected on the sea-shore, answering also the purpose of a light- 
house. The rites of the temple consisted partly of hymns 
chanted by young and beautiful women to the sound of harps 
and flutes : and it was their office to entangle by their allure- 
ments such strangers as touched upon the coast : who were 
instantly seized by the priests and sacrificed to the solar god. 
The Syrens are described as the daughters of Calliope, Mel- 
pomene, and Terpsichore; three of the Muses : they were in 
fact the same with the Muses. These temples were sacred col- 
leges : sciences were taught there : in particular music and astro- 
nomy. The transition was easy from the young priestesses of 
these temples, to blooming goddesses who presided over history, 
poetry, &c. See the " Analysis of Ancient Mythology." 



THE THEOGONY. 107 

The Graces also dwell, and Love himself, 
And hold the feast. But they through parted lips 
Send forth a lovely voice ; they sing the laws 
Of universal heaven ; the manners pure 
Of deathless gods, and lovely is their voice. 
Anon they bend their footsteps tow'rds the mount, 
Rejoicing in their beauteous voice and song 
Unperishing : far round the dusky earth 
Rings with their hymning voices, and beneath 
Their many-rustling feet a pleasant sound 
Ariseth, as tumultous pass they on 
To greet their heavenly sire. He reigns in heaven, 
The bolt and glowing lightning in his grasp, 
Since by the strong ascendant of his arm 
Saturn his father fell : he to the gods 
Appoints the laws, and he their honours names. 

So sing the Muses ; dwellers on the mount 
Of heaven : nine daughters of the mighty Jove : 
Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, 
Polymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, 
Urania, Clio, and Calliope : 
The chiefest she : who walks upon the steps 
Of kingly judges in their majesty : 
And whomsoe'er of heavenly-nurtured kings 



10& REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Jove's daughters will to honour, looking down 
With smiling aspect on his cradled head 
They pour a gentle dew upon his tongue : 
And words, as honey sweet, drop from his lips. 
To him the people look : on him all eyes 
Wait awful, who in righteousness discerns 
The ways of judgment : in a single breath, 
Utter'd with knowledge, ends the mightiest strife, 
And all is peace. The wisdom this of kings : 
That in their judgment-hall they from the oppress'd 
Turn back the tide of ills, retrieving wrongs 
With mild accost of soothing eloquence. 
On him, the judge and king, when passing forth 
Among the city-ways, all reverent look 
With a mild worship, as he were a god : 
And in the great assembly first is he. 

Soothing eloquence.] This passage is exactly similar to one in 
the Odyssey, b. viii. : 

Jove 
Crowns him with eloquence : his hearers charm'd 
Behold him, while with unassuming tone 
He bears the prize of fluent speech from all ; 
And when he walks the city, as they pass, 
All turn and gaze, as they had pass'd a god. Cowper. 

The great assembly.] The ancient Grecian princes, as Diony- 
sius ?f Halicarnassus remarks, were not absolute like the 



THE THEOGONY. 109 

Such is the Muses' goodly gift to man. 
The Muses, and Apollo darting far 

Asiatic monarchs : their power being limited by laws and 
established customs : " and this is perfectly consonant to the 
higher authority of Homer. The poet himself appears a warm 
friend to monarchical rule, and takes every opportunity zealously 
to inculcate loyalty. " The government of many is bad : let there 
be one chief, one king." It is, however, sufficiently evident 
that the poet means here to speak of executive government only : 
" Let there be one chief, one king," he says : but he adds, " to 
whom Jupiter has intrusted the sceptre and the laws, that by 
them he may govern" Accordingly in every Grecian government 
which he has occasion to enlarge upon, he plainly discovers 
to us strong principles of republican rule. Not only the council 
of principal men, but the assembly of the people also is familiar 
to him. The name agora signifying a place of meeting, and the 
verb formed from it to express haranguing in assemblies of the 
people, were already in common use ; and to be a good public 
speaker was esteemed among the highest qualifications a man 
could possess. In the government of Phaeacia, as described in 
the Odyssey, the mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and demo- 
cracy is not less clearly marked than in the British constitution. 
One chief, twelve peers (all honoured, like the chief, with the 
title which we translate king), and the assembly of the people, 
shared the supreme authority. The universal and undoubted 
prerogatives of kings were religious supremacy and military com- 
mand. They often also exercised judicial power. But in all 
civil concerns their authority appears very limited. Every thing, 
indeed, that remains concerning government in the oldest Grecian 
poets and historians, tends to demonstrate that the general spirit 
of it among the early Greeks was nearly the same as among our 
Teutonic ancestors. The ordinary business of the community was 



110 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The arrows of his splendour, raise on earth 
Harpers and men of song : but kings arise 
From Jove himself. Oh blessed is the man 
Whome'er the Muses love ! sweet is the voice 
That from his lips flows ever. Is there one 
Who hides some fresh grief in his wounded mind 

directed by the chiefs. Concerning extraordinary matters and 
more essential interests, the multitude claimed a right to be con- 
sulted. Mitford, History of Greece, i. 3. 

Harpers and men of song.~\ Singer was a common name 
among the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and other ancient people, 
for poet and musician ; employments which were then insepara- 
ble : as no poetry was written but to be sung ; and little or no 
music composed, but as an accompaniment to poetry. Burney, 
History of Music, 312. 

Is there one 

Who hides some fresh grief. ] This whole pas- 
sage is found among the fragments attributed to Homer. This 
sentiment of the power of poesy and the subjects chosen by the 
bard is entirely in the spirit of antiquity, when mythology and 
heroism were the favourite themes. Achilles is described by 
Homer as diverting the uneasiness of his mind by warlike odes 
which he accompanied on the lyre, II. ix. 189 : 

Arriving soon 
Among the Myrmidons, their chief they found 
Soothing his sorrows with the silver-framed 
Harmonious lyre, spoil taken when he took 
iEetion's city : with that lyre his cares 
He soothed, and glorious heroes were his theme. 

Cowper. 



THE THEOGONY. Ill 

And mourns with aching heart ? but he, the bard, 

The servant of the Muse, awakes the song 

To deeds of men of old, and blessed gods 

That dwell on mount Olympus. Straight he feels 

His sorrow stealing in forgetfulness : 

Nor of his griefs remembers aught : so soon 

The Muse's gift has turn'd his woes away. 

Daughters of Jove ! all hail ! but oh inspire 
The lovely song ! record the heavenly race 
Of gods existing ever : those who sprang 
From earth and starry heaven and murky night, 

The servant of the Muse.~\ Laws were always promulgated in 
verse, and often publicly sung ; a practice which remained in 
many places long after letters were become common: mora- 
lity was taught : history was delivered in verse. Lawgivers, 
philosophers^ historians, all who would apply their experience or 
their genius to the instruction and amusement of others, were 
necessarily poets. The character of poet was therefore a cha- 
racter of dignity : an opinion even of sacredness became at- 
tached to it : a poetical genius was esteemed an effect of divine 
inspiration and a mark of divine favour : and the poet, who 
moreover carried with him instruction and entertainment, not to 
be obtained without him, was a privileged person, enjoying by a 
kind of prescription the rights of universal hospitality. Mitford. 

Yet in the vulgar tradition, Homer is represented as a mere 
ballad-singing mendicant ! and whoever attempts to refute, by the 
light of historic evidence and of reason, this or similar absur- 
dities of modern ignorance, when sanctioned by popular pre- 
judice, must expect to be set down as a dealer in paradoxes. 



112 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And whom the salt deep quicken'd. Say how first 
The gods and earth became : how rivers flow'd : 
Th' unbounded sea raged high in foamy swell, 
The stars shone forth, and overhead the sky 
Spread its broad arch : and say from these what gods, 
Givers of blessings, sprang : and how they shared 
Heaven's splendid attributes and parted out 
Distinct their honours : and how first they fix'd 
Their dwelling midst Olympus' winding vales : 
Tell, oh ye Muses ! ye who also dwell 
In mansions of Olympus : tell me all 
From the beginning : say who first arose. 

First of all beings Chaos was : and next 
Wide-bosom'd Earth, the seat for ever firm 
Of all th' immortals, whose abode is placed 
Among the mount Olympus' snow-top'd heads, 
Or in the dark abysses of the ground : 

First of all beings Chaos was.] The ancients were in general 
materialists, and thought the world eternal. But the mundane 
system, or at least the history of the world, they supposed to 
commence from the deluge. The confusion which prevailed at 
the deluge is often represented as the chaotic state of nature : for 
the earth was hid, and the heavens obscured, and all the elements 
in disorder. Bryant. 

Or in the dark abysses of the ground.] Tartarus is considered 
by Brucker in his epitome of the Theogony (Historia Critica 



THE THEOGONY. 113 

Then Love most beauteous of immortals rose ; 
He of each god and mortal man at once 
Unnerves the limbs, dissolves the wiser breast 
By reason steel'd, and quells the very soul. 

From Chaos, Erebus and sable Night : 
From Night arose the Sunshine and the Day : ^ 

Offspring of Night from Erebus' embrace. 

Earth first conceived with Heaven: whose starry cope, 
Like to herself immense, might compass her 
On every side : and be to blessed gods 
A resting-place immoveable for ever. 
She teem'd with the high Hills, the pleasant haunts 
Of goddess nymphs, who dwell within the glens 
Of mountains. With no aid of tender love 
She gave to birth the sterile Sea, high-swol'n 
In raging foam : and, Heaven-embraced, anon 
She teem'd with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls 
His vast abyss of waters. Crceus, then, 
Caeus, Hyperion, and Iapetus, 
Themis, and Thea rose : Mnemosyne, 

Philosophise, torn. 1.) as the third birth. Tartarus is, indeed, 
after introduced as a person, but in the singular number : the 
word is here used in the plural, and I conceive it to mean simply 
the cavities of the earth, and to be connected with the preceding 
sentence. 



114 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And Rhea ; Phoebe diadem'd with gold, 

And love-inspiring Tethys : and of these, 

Youngest in birth, the wily Saturn came, 

The sternest of her sons; for he abhorr'd 

The sire who gave him life. Then brought she forth 

The Cyclops brethren, arrogant of heart, 

The Cyclops brethren.'] Thucydides acquaints us concerning 
the Cyclopes, that they were the most ancient inhabitants of 
Sicily, but that he could not find out their race. Strabo places 
them near iEtna and Icontina, and supposes that they once ruled 
over that part of the island ; and it is certain that a people called 
Cyclopians did possess that province. It is generally agreed by 
writers upon the subject, that they were of a size superior to the 
common race of mankind. Among the many tribes of the Amo- 
nians who went abroad, were to be found people who were styled 
Anakim ; and were descended from the sons of Anak : so that 
this history, though carried to a great excess, was probably 
founded in truth. They were particularly famous for architecture; 
and in all parts whither they came, they erected noble structures, 
which were remarkable for their height and beauty : and were 
often dedicated to the chief deity, the sun, under the name of 
Elorus and P'Elorus. People were so struck with their grandeur, 
that they called every thing great or stupendous Pelorian (weXw^f, 
huge): and when they described the Cyclopians as a lofty towering 
race, they came at last to borrow their ideas of this people from 
the towers to which they alluded. They supposed them in height 
to reach the clouds, and in bulk equal to the promontories on 
which these edifices were founded. As these buildings were 
often-times light-houses, and had in their upper story one round 
casement, " like an Argolick buckler or the moon," by which they 
afforded light in the night-season, the Greeks made this a cha- 



THE THEOGONY. 115 

Undaunted Arges, Brontes, Steropes : 

Who forged the lightning shaft, and gave to Jove 

His thunder : they were like unto the gods : 

Save that a single ball of sight was fix'd 

In their mid-forehead. Cyclops was their name, 

From that round eye-ball in their brow infix'd : 

And strength and force and manual craft were theirs. 

racteristic of the people. They supposed this aperture to have 
been an eye, which was fiery and glaring, and placed in the 
middle of their foreheads. What confirmed the mistake was the 
representation of an eye, which was often engraved over the 
entrance of these temples : the chief deity of Mgypt being 
elegantly represented by the symbol of an eye, which was in- 
tended to signify the superintendency of Providence. The notion 
of the Cyclopes framing the thunder and lightning for Jupiter, 
arose chiefly from the Cyclopians engraving hieroglyphics of this 
sort upon the temples of the deity. The poets considered them 
merely in the capacity of blacksmiths, and condemned them to 
the anvil. Bryant. 

The proximity of iEtna doubtless had its share in this delusion, 

Virg. iEn. viii. 417 : 

Deep below 

In hollow caves the fires of iEtna glow. 

The Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal : 

*» Loud strokes and hissings of tormented steel 

Are heard around : the boiling waters roar, 

And smoky flames through fuming tunnels soar. 

Hither the father of the fire by night, 

Through the brown air precipitates his flight : 

On their eternal anvils here he found 

The brethren beating, and the blows go round. Drydejt. 

I 2 



116 REMAINS OF HKSIOD. 

Others again were born from Earth and Heaven : 
Three giant sons : strong, dreadful but to name, 
Children of glorying valour : Briareus, 
Cottus and Gyges : from whose shoulders burst 
A hundred arms that mock'd approach, and o'er 
Their limbs hard-sinew'd fifty heads upsprang : 
Mighty th' immeasurable strength display'd 
In each gigantic stature : and of all 
The children born to earth and heaven these sons 
Were dreadfullest : and they, e'en from the first, 
Drew down their father's hate : as each was born 
He seized them all, and hid them in th' abyss 
Of Earth : nor e'er released them to the light. 
Heaven in his evil deed rejoiced : vast Earth 
Groan'd inly, sore aggrieved : but soon devised 
A stratagem of mischief and of fraud. 
Sudden creating for herself a kind 
Of whiter iron, she with labour framed 
A scythe enormous : and address'd her sons : 
She spoke emboldening words, though grieved at heart. 

" My sons ! alas ! ye children of a sire 
Most impious, now obey a mother's voice : 
So shall we well avenge the fell despite 
Of him your father, who the first devised 



THE THEOGONY. 117 

Deeds of injustice." While she said, on all 

Fear fell : nor utterance found they, till with soul 

Embolden'd, wily Saturn huge address'd 

His awful mother. " Mother ! be the deed 

My own : thus pledged I will most sure achieve 

This feat : nor heed I him, our sire, of name 

Detested : for that he the first devised 

Deeds of injustice." Thus he said, and Earth 

Was gladden'd at her heart. She planted him 

In ambush dark and secret : in his grasp 

She placed the sharp-tooth'd scythe, and tutor'd him 

In every wile. Vast Heaven came down from high, 

And with him brought the gloominess of Night 

On all beneath : with ardour of embrace 

Hovering o'er Earth, in his immensity 

He lay diffused around. The son stretch'd forth 

His weaker hand from ambush : in his right 

He took the sickle huge and long and rough 



He took the sickle.] In a fragment of Sanchoniatho, the Phoe- 
nician philosopher, translated by Philo the Jew, is recorded this 
very history of Uranus and Cronus, or Saturn. De Gebelin, in his 
" Monde Primitif," resolves it, according to his system, into the 
invention of reaping, which he supposes Saturn to personify. 
But Saturn is often represented with a ship, as well as a sickle ; 



118 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

With sharpen'd teeth : and hastily he reap'd 
The genial organs of his sire, at once 
Cut sheer : then cast behind him far away. 
They not in vain escaped his hold : for Earth 
Received the blood-drops, and as years roll'd round 
Teem'd with strong furies and with giants huge, 
Shining in mail, and grasping in their hands 
Protended spears : and wood-nymphs, named of men 
Dryads, o'er all th' immeasurable earth. 

So severing, as was said, with edge of steel 
The genial spoils, he from the continent 
Amidst the many surges of the sea 
Hurl'd them. Full long they drifted o'er the deeps : 
Till now swift-circling a white foam arose 
From that immortal substance, and a nymph 

which has no reference to agriculture. The explanation may, 
however, be correct, if we consider Saturn not as a mere figura- 
tive prosopopoeia of reaping, but as the real person who restored 
the labours of harvest ; in the same manner as his Greek name 
Cronus, which some have thought to intimate a personification 
of Time, points out very significantly the person who began the 
new sera of time : the great father of the post-diluvian world. 
The type of the ship on the ancient coins of Saturn is an appo- 
site emblem of the ark : and the concealment of the children of 
Heaven in a cavern seems an obscure remnant of the same tra- 
dition. 



THE THEOGONY. 119 

Was quicken'd in the midst. The wafting waves 

First bore her to Cythera's heavenly coast : 

Then reach'd she Cyprus, girt with flowing seas, 

And forth emerged a goddess, in the charms 

Of awful beauty. Where her delicate feet 

Had press'd the sands, green herbage flowering sprang. 

Her Aphrodite gods and mortals name, 

The foam-born goddess : and her name is known, 

The foam-born goddess.] The name of the Dove among the 
ancient Amonians was Ion and Ionah. This term is often found 
compounded, and expressed Ad-Ibnah, queen dove : from which 
title another deity, Adiona, was constituted. This mode of 
idolatry must have been very ancient, as it is mentioned in Le- 
viticus and Deuteronomy, and is one species of false worship, 
which Moses forbade by name. According to our method of 
rendering the Hebrew term it is called Idione. This Idione or 
Adione was the Dione of the Greeks : the deity who was some- 
times looked upon as the mother of Venus : at other times as 
Venus herself: and styled Venus Dionaea. Venus was no other 
than the ancient Ibnah : and we shall find in her history num- 
berless circumstances relating to the Noachic dove, and to the 
deluge. We are told, when the waters covered the earth, that 
the dove came back to Noah, having roamed over a vast unin- 
terrupted ocean, and found no rest for the sole of her foot. But 
upon being sent forth a second time by the patriarch, in order to 
form a judgment of the state of the earth, she returned to the 
ark in the evening, and " Lo ! in her mouth was an olive leaf 
plucked off." From hence Noah conceived his first hopes of the 
waters being assuaged, and the elements reduced to order. He 
likewise began to foresee the change that was to happen in the 



120 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

As Gytherea with the blooming wreath, 
For that she touch'd Cythera's flowery coast : 
And Cypris, for that on the Cyprian shore 
She rose, amidst the multitude of waves : 
And Philomedia, from the source of life. 
Love track'd her steps ; and beautiful Desire 



earth : that seed-time and harvest would be renewed, and the ground 
restored to its pristine fecundity. In the hieroglyphical sculptures 
and paintings where this history was represented, the dove was 
depicted hovering over the face of the deep. Hence it is that 
Dione, or Venus, is said to have risen from the sea. Hence it 
is, also, that she is said to preside over waters, to appease the 
troubled ocean, and to cause by her presence a universal calm : 
that to her were owing the fruits of the earth, and the flowers of 
the field were renewed by her influence. The address of Lucretius 
to this goddess is founded on traditions, which manifestly allude 
to the history above mentioned. Bryant. 

Love track' d her steps.] What the Greeks called Iris, was 
expressed Eiras by the ^Egyptians, The Greeks out of Eiras 
formed Eros, a god of love, whom they annexed to Venus, and 
made her son : and finding that the bow was his symbol, instead 
of the iris they gave him a material bow, with the addition of a 
quiver and arrows. The bows of Apollo and Diana were formed 
from the same original. After the descent from the ark the first 
wonderful occurrence was the bow in the clouds, and the cove- 
nant of which it was made an emblem. At this season another 
sera began. The earth was supposed to be renewed, and Time 
to return to a second infancy. They therefore formed an emblem 
of a child with the rainbow, to denote this renovation in the world, 
and called him Eros, or Divine Love. But however like a child 



THE THEOGONY. 121 

Pursued, while soon as born she bent her way 

Towards heaven's assembled gods : her honours these 

From the beginning : whether gods or men 

Her presence bless, to her the portion fell 

Of virgin whisperings and alluring smiles, 

And smooth deceits, and gentle ecstasy, 

And dalliance, and the blandishments of love. 

But the great Heaven, rebuking those his sons 
That issued from his loins, new-named them now 
Titans : and said that they avenging dared 
A crime ; but retribution was behind. 

he might be expressed, the more early mythologists esteemed him 
the most ancient of the gods ; and Lucian, with great humour, 
makes Jupiter very much puzzled to account for the appearance 
of this infant deity. " Why thou urchin/' says the father of the 
gods, " how came you with that little childish face, when I know 
you to be as old as Iapetus ? " The Greek and Roman poets re- 
duced the character of this deity to that of a wanton, mischievous 
pigmy : but he was otherwise esteemed of old. He is styled by 
Plato a mighty god ; and it is said that Eros was the cause of the 
greatest blessings to mankind. Bryant. 

Virgin wisperings.] These attributes of Venus suggest a com- 
parison with the properties of her cestus as described by Homer : 

It was an ambush of sweet snares : replete 
With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts, 
And music of resistless whisper'd sounds, 
Which from the wisest steal their best resolves. 

Cowpeb. 



122 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Abhorred Fate and dark Necessity 
And Death were born from Night : by none embraced 
These gloomy Night brought self-conceiving forth : 
And Sleep and all the hovering host of dreams. 
Then bare she Momus ; Care, still brooding sad 
On many griefs ; and next th' Hesperian maids, 

Then bare she Momus.] Hesiod has truly painted the 
nature of detraction (Momus) in describing it as born from 
Night. The same origin is given to Care: because all anxieties 
are increased in the night-season: whence Night is styled by 
Ovid, " the mighty nurse of Cares." Le Clerc. 

TK Hesperian maids.] The ancient temples in which the sun 
was adored often stood within enclosures of large extent. Some 
of them were beautifully planted, and ornamented with pavilions 
and fountains. Places of this nature are alluded to under the 
description of the gardens of the Hesperides and Alcinous. 
They were also regal edifices : and termed Tor-chom and Tar- 
chon ; which signified a regal tower, and was of old a high 
place or temple of Cham. By a corruption it was in later times 
rendered Trachon. The term was still further sophisticated by 
the Greeks, and expressed Drachon. The situation of these 
buildings on a high eminence, and the reverence in which they 
were held, made them be looked upon as places of great security. 
On these accounts they were the repositories of much treasure. 
When the Greeks understood that in these temples the people 
worshipped a serpent-deity, they concluded that Trachon was 
a serpent : hence the name Draco came to be appropriated to 
that imaginary animal. Hence also arose the notion of treasures 
being guarded by dragons, and of the gardens of the Hesperides 
being under the protection of a serpent. Bryant. 

Perhaps also in these gardens was kept up the ancient Para- 



THE THEOGONY. 123 

Whose charge o'er-sees the fruits of blooming gold 

Beyond the sounding ocean, the fair trees 

Of golden fruitage. Then the Destinies 

Arose, and Fates in vengeance pitiless : 

Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos : 

Who at the birth of men dispense the lot 

disiacal tradition : as the golden apples and the dragon present 
an analogy with the hieroglyphic account given by Moses of the 
forbidden fruit and the serpent. This is the more probable, as 
it is evident this tradition had mixed itself in the dispersed 
legends of pagan mythology from the remarkable coincidence of 
the " serpent-woman," considered by the Mexicans as the mother 
of the human race, and ranked next to " the god of the celestial 
paradise. " The Mexican temples, also, where " the great 
spirit," or sun personified, was worshipped, are described by 
Humboldt in his " American Researches," as raised in the 
midst of a square and walled enclosure, which contained gardens 
and fountains. This mixed worship of the Paradisiacal serpent 
may account for a serpent, twisted into the form of a fillet, 
being made an emblem of the sun's disk : and for snaky hair 
being typical of divine wisdom : while the tresses were, at the 
same time, so disposed as to figure the sun's rays, and the human 
visage represented his orb. 

The Hesperian virgins seem the same with the Muses and 
Syrens, the priestesses of the temple : and their singing sweetly 
on their watch, as described afterwards by Hesiod, alludes to 
the hymns which they chanted at the altar. They are made the 
daughters of Night, because the gardens were in Afric : which, 
equally with Italy and Spain, was denominated Hesperia by the 
Greeks : and the region of the west was considered as synony- 
mous with Night. 



124 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Of good and evil. They of men and gods 
The crimes pursue, nor ever pause from wrath 
Tremendous, till destructive on the head 
Of him that sins the retribution fall. 

Then teem'd pernicious Night with Nemesis, 
The scourge of mortal men : again she bare 
Fraud and lascivious Love : slow-wasting Age, 
And still-persisting Strife. From hateful Strife 
Came sore Affliction and Oblivion drear : 
Famine and weeping Sorrows : Combats, Wars, 
And Slaughters, and all Homicides : and Brawls, 
And Bickerings, and deluding Lies : with them 
Perverted Law and galling Injury, 
Inseparable mates : and the dread Oath ; 
A mighty bane to him of earth-born men 
Who wilful swears, and perjured is forsworn. 

The Sea with Earth embracing, Nereus rose, 
Eldest of all his race : unerring seer, 
And true : with filial veneration named 

Eldest of all his race.'] The history of the patriarch was re- 
corded by the ancients through their whole theology. All the 
principal deities of the sea, however diversified, have a manifest 
relation to him. Noah was figured under the history of Nereus : 
and his character of an unerring prophet, as well as of a just, 
righteous, and benevolent man, is plainly described by Hesiod. 

Bryant. 



THE THEOGONY. 125 

Ancient of Years : for mild and blameless he : 
Remembering still the right ; still merciful 
As just in counsels. Then rose Thaumas vast, 
Phorcys the mighty, Ceto fair of cheek, 
And stern Eurybia, of an iron soul. 

From Nereus and the fair-hair'd Doris, nymph 
Of ocean's perfect stream, the lovely race 
Of goddess Nereids rose to light, whose haunt 
Is midst the waters of the sterile main : 
Eucrate, Proto, Thetis, Amphitrite, 
Love-breathing Thalia, Sao, and Eudora, 

Then rose Thaumas vast.] That beautiful phenomenon in the 
heavens, which we call the rainbow, was by the /Egyptians 
styled Thamuz, and signified " the wonder." The Greeks ex- 
pressed it Thaumas : and hence was derived Qa.uy.a^o- i to wonder. 
This Thaumas they did not immediately appropriate to the bow : 
but supposed them to be two personages, and Thaumas the 
parent. Bryant. 

Phorcys the mighty.] Homer calls him " the old man of the 
sea :" and gives precisely the same appellation to Proteus. The 
character of the latter varies only from that of Nereus in the 
quality of transforming himself into sundry shapes. This may 
have a reference to the great diluvian changes, varying the face 
of nature. The connexion of Phorcys and Ceto favours the 
supposition that these three deities are one and the same per- 
sonage. 

" The ark in which mankind were preserved was figured under 
the semblance of a large fish. It was called Cetos." Bryant. 

Cetos is the Greek term for a whale. 



126 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And Spio, skimming with light feet the wave : 

Galene, Glauce, and Cymothoe: 

Agave, and the graceful Melita : 

Rose-arm'd Eunice, and Eulimene : 

Pasithea, Doto, Erato, Pherusa, 

Nesaea, Cranto, and Dynamene : 

Protomedia, Doris, and Actaea : 

And Panope, and Galataea fair : 

Rose-arm'd Hipponbe : soft Hippothbe : 

Cymodoce who calms, at once, the waves 

Of the dark sea, and blasts of heaven-breathed winds : 

With whom Cymatole'ge, and the nymph 

Of beauteous ankles Amphitrite glide : 

Cymo, Eione, Liagore, 

And Halimede, with her sea-green wreath : 

Pontopori'a, and Polynome; 

Evagore, and blithe Glauconome : 

Laomedia, and Evarne blest 

With gracious nature and with faultless form : 

Rose-arm'd Eunice.] oo^citi^v-, rosy-elbow' 'd : this epithet, to- 
gether with that of pcSolccy.- uXc , rosy-fingered, was derived from 
the artificial custom of staining the elbow and tops of the fingers 
with rose-colour. In Dallaway's Constantinople it is remarked 
of the modern Greek girls " that the nails both of the fingers and 
the feet are always stained of a rose-colour : " a curious vestige 
of Grecian antiquity. 



THE THEOGONY. 127 

Lysianassa, and Autonome, 

And Psamathe, with shape of comeliness : 

Divine Menippe, Neso, and Themistho : 

And Pronoe, and Eupompe, and Nemertes : 

Full of her deathless sire's prophetic soul. 

These sprang from blameless Nereus : Nereid nymph 

Who midst the waters ply their blameless tasks. 

Electra, nymph of the deep-flowing ocean, 
Embraced with Thaumas : rapid Iris thence 
Rose, and Aello and Ocypetes, 
The sister-harpies, fair with streaming locks : 
Who track the breezy winds and flights of birds, 
On wings of swiftness hovering nigh the heaven. 

Then Ceto, fair of cheek, to Phorcys bore 

Nereid nymphs.] Spenser, in his " Spousals of the Thames 
and Medway," b. 4. cant. ii. of the " Faery Queen," has im- 
.posed on himself a task, from which a translator would fain 
escape : and has transposed into his stanzas the whole fifty 
Nereids of Hesiod, together with his catalogue of Rivers. 

The sister-harpies. ~\ The harpies were priests of the sun : 
they were denominated from their seat of residence, which was 
an oracular temple called Harpi. The representation of them as 
winged animals was only the insigne of the people, as the eagle 
and vulture were of the ^Egyptians. They seem to have bee,n 
a set of rapacious persons, who for their repeated acts of 
violence and cruelty were driven out of Bithynia, their country. 

Bryant. 



128 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The Graiae ; from their birth-hour gray : and hence 
Their name with gods, and men that walk the earth : 
Long-robed Pephredo, saffron-veiPd Enyo : 
And Gorgons dwelling on the brink of night 
Beyond the sounding main : where silver-voiced 
Th' Hesperian maidens in their watches sing : 
Stheno, Euryale, Medusa these : 
The last ill-fated, since of mortal date : 
The two immortal, and unchanged by years. 

The Grata ; from their birth-hour gray.] The circumstance 
of their being gray seems to be explained by a passage of /Eschy- 
lus, who describes them as halt-women, half-swans : 

The Gorgonian plains 
Of Cisthine, where dwell the Phorcydes 
Swan-form'd, three ancient nymphs, one common eye 
Their portion. Prometheus Chained. 

" This history relates to an Amonian temple founded in the 
extreme parts of Africa, in which there were three priestesses of 
Canaanitish race, who on that account are said to be in the 
shape of swans : the swan being the insigne under which their 
country was denoted. The notion of their having but one eye 
among them took its rise from a hieroglyphic very common in 
iEgypt and Canaan : this was the representation of an eye, 
which was engraved on the pediment of their temples." Bryant. 
The Gorgons were probably similar personages : they are de- 
scribed by iEschylus with wings and serpentine locks : attri- 
butes apparently borrowed from the emblematical devices in the 
temples of JEgypt. Gorgon was a title of Minerva at Cyrene in 
Xybia. 



THE THEOGONY. 129 



Yet her alone the blue-hair'd god of waves 
Enfolded, on the tender meadow grass, 
And bedded flowers of spring : when Perseus smote 
Her neck, and snatch'd the sever'd bleeding head, 



When Perseus smote 



Her neck. ] The island of 

Seriphus is represented as having once abounded with serpents; 
and it is styled by Virgil in his Ciris serpentifera : it had this 
epithet, not on account of any real serpents, but according to 
the Greeks, from Medusa's head, which was brought thither by 
Perseus. By this is meant the serpent-deity, whose worship was 
here introduced by a people called Peresians. It was usual with 
the ^Egyptians to describe upon the architrave of their temples 
some emblem of the deity who there presided : among others the 
serpent was esteemed a most salutary emblem, and they made 
use of it to signify superior skill and knowledge. A beautiful 
female countenance surrounded with an assemblage of serpents 
vas made to denote divine wisdom. Many ancient temples were 
ornamented with this curious hieroglyphic. These devices upon 
temples were often esteemed as talismans, and supposed to have 
a hidden influence by which the building was preserved. In the 
temple of Minerva, at Tigea, was some sculpture of Medusa, 
which the goddess was said to have given to preserve the city 
from ever being taken in war. It was probably from this opinion 
that the Athenians had the head of Medusa represented on the 
walls of their Acropolis ; and it was the insigne of many cities, 
as we find from ancient coins. Perseus was one of the most 
ancient heroes in the mythology of Greece : the merit of whose 
supposed achievements the Helladians took to themselves, and 
gave out that he was a native of Argos. Herodotus more truly 
represents him as an Assyrian; by which is meant a Babylonian. 

K 



130 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The great Chrysaor then leap'd into life ; 
And Pegasus the steed j who born beside 

Yet he resided in iEgypt, and is said to have reigned at Memphis. 
To say the truth, he was worshipped at that place : for Perseus 
was a title of the deity, and was no other than the Sun, the 
chief god of the gentile world. His true name was Perez ; 
rendered Peresis, Perses, and Perseus : and in the account given 
of this personage we have the history of the Peresians in their 
several peregrinations; who were no other than the Heliadae and 
Osirians. It is a mixed history in which their forefathers are 
alluded to : particularly their great progenitor, the father of 
mankind. He was supposed to have had a renewal of life : 
they therefore described Perseus as enclosed in an ark and ex- 
posed in a state of childhood on the waters, after having been 
conceived in a shower of gold. Bryant. 

The great Chrysaor.'] Chus by the ./Egyptians and Canaanites 
was styled Or-chus, and Chus-or : the latter of which was ex- 
pressed by the Greeks by a word more familiar to their ear 
Chrusor ; as if it had a reference to gold. This name was some- 
times changed into Chrusaor : and occurs in many places where 
the Cuthites were known to have settled. They were a long time 
in iEgypt : and we read of a Chrusaor in those parts, who is said 
to have sprung from the blood of Medusa. We meet with the 
same Chrusaor in the regions of Asia Minor, especially among the 
Carians : in those parts he was particularly worshipped, and 
said to have been the first deified mortal. The Grecians borrowed 
this term, and applied it to Apollo : and from this epithet, Chru- 
saor, he was denominated the god of the golden sword. This 
weapon was at no time ascribed to him, nor is he ever represented 
with one either on a gem or marble. He is described by Homer 
in the hymn to Apollo, as wishing for a harp and a bow. There 



THE THEOGONY. 13l 

Old Nilus' fountains thence derived a name. 
Chrysaor, grasping in his hands a sword 

is never any mention made of a sword, nor was the term Chru- 
saor of Grecian etymology. Since, then, we may be assured 
that Chus was the person alluded to, we need not wonder that 
so many cities, where Apollo was particularly worshipped, should 
be called Chruse, and Chrusopolis. Nor is this observable in 
cities only, but in rivers. It was usual in the first ages to con- 
secrate rivers to deities, and to call them after their names. 
Hence many were denominated from Chrusorus : which by the 
Greeks was changed to x?'-™??™', flowing with gold : and from 
this mistake, the Nile was called Chnisorrhoas, which had no 
pretensions to gold. In all the places where the sons of Chus 
spread themselves, the Greeks introduced some legend about gold. 
Hence we read of a golden fleece at Colchis : golden apples at 
the Hesperides : at Tartessus a golden cup : and at Cuma in 
Campania a golden branch. But although this repeated mistake 
arose in great measure from the term Chusus being easily con- 
vertible into Chrusus, there was another obvious reason for the 
change. Chus was by many of the Eastern nations expressed 
Cuth ; and his posterity, the Cuthim. This term, in the ancient 
Chaldaic and other Amonian languages, signified gold : and 
hence many cities and countries where the. Cuthites settled were 
described as golden. Bryant. 

And Pegasus the steed.] Pegasus received its name from a 
well-known emblem, the horse of Poseidon : by which we are 
to understand an ark or ship. " By horses," says Artemidorus, 
the poets mean ships :" and hence it is that Poseidon is called 
Hippius ; for there is a strict analogy between the poetical or 
winged horse on land, and a real ship in the sea. Hence it came 
that Pegasus was esteemed the horse of Poseidon (Neptune), and 
often named scuphius ; a name which relates to a ship, and shows 
K2 



132 REMAINS OF HESIOD 

Of gold, flew upward on the winged horse : 
And left beneath him earth, mother of flocks, 
And soar'd to heaven's immortals : and there dwells 
In palaces of Jove, and to the god 
Deep-counselPd bears the bolt and arrowy flame. 

Chrysaor with Callirhoe, blending love, 
Nymph of sonorous ocean, Geryon rose, 

the purport of the emblem. The ark, we know, was preserved 
by divine providence from the sea, which would have over 
whelmed it : and as it was often represented under this symbol 
of a horse, it gave rise to the fable of the two chief deities, 
Jupiter and Neptune, disputing about horses. Bryant. 

To this we may add the still more remarkable fable of the dis- 
pute between Neptune and Pallas : when the former produces a 
horse, and the latter an olive-tree. " These notions," observes the 
author of the Analysis, " arose from emblematical descriptions of 
the deluge, which the Grecians had received by tradition : but 
what was general they limited, and appropriated to particular 
places." 

Old Nilus* fountains.] nxsuvu th^i nnyac. Le Clerc remarks 
that " this derivation is absurd : as we do not talk of the foun- 
tains of the sea, but of rivers." He adds, however, that " Hesiod 
more than once calls the ocean the river : " and this should have 
led him to perceive that it is in fact a river of which Hesiod 
speaks. The oceanic river was the Nile, which in very ancient 
times was called the Oceanus. 

Geryon rose.] One of the principal and most ancient settle- 
ments of the Amonians upon the ocean was at Gades; 
where a prince was supposed to have reigned, named Geryon. 
The harbour at Gades was a very fine one, and had several- tor, 



THE THEOGONY. 13S 

Three headed form : him the strong Hercules 

Despoil'd of life among his hoof-cloven herds 

On Erythia, girdled by the wave : 

What time those oxen ample-brow'd he drove 

To sacred Tyrinth, the broad ocean frith 

Once past : and Orthrus, the grim herd-dog, stretch'd 

Lifeless ; and in their murky den beyond 

The billows of the long-resounding deep, 

The keeper of those herds, Eurytion, slain. 

Another monster Ceto bare anon 
In the deep-hollow'd cavern of a rock : 



or towers, to direct shipping : and as it was usual to imagine the 
deity to whom the temple was erected to have been the builder, 
this temple was said to have been built by Hercules. All this 
the Grecians took to themselves. They attributed the whole to 
Hercules of Thebes : and as he was supposed to conquer where- 
ever he came, they made him subdue Geryon : and changing the 
tor or towers into so many head of cattle, they describe him as 
leading them off in triumph. Tor-keren signified a regal tower ; 
and this being interpreted Tp««pw>$, this personage was in con- 
sequence described with three heads. Bryant. 

Erythia, according to Pliny, is another name for Gades. 

In the deep-hollow 1 d cavern of a rock^\ It is probable that at 
Arima in Cilicia there was an Ophite temple ; which, like all the 
most ancient temples, was a vast cavern. Some emblematical 
sculpture of the serpent-deity may have given rise to the creation 
of this mythological prodigy. The Hydra had, probably, a si- 
milar origin. 



134 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Stupendous nor in shape resembling aught 

Of human or of heavenly ; the divine 

Echidna, the untameable of soul : 

Above, a nymph with beauty-blooming cheeks, 

And eyes of jetty lustre; but below, 

A speckled serpent horrible and huge, 

Gorged with blood-banquets, monstrous, hid in caves 

Of sacred earth. There in the uttermost depth 

Her cavern is, within a vaulted rock : 

Alike from mortals and immortals deep 

Remote : the gods have there decreed her place 

In mansions known to fame. So pent beneath 

The rocks of Arima Echidna dwelt 

Hideous : a nymph immortal, and in youth 

Unhcanged for evermore. But legends tell, 

That with the jet-eyed nymph Typhaon mix'd 

His fierce embrace : a whirlwind rude and wild : 

A whirlwind rude and wild.] There were two distinct Typhons 
or Typhaons, although they are sometimes confounded together. 
The one is the same as the gigantic TyphaBus, subsequently de- 
scribed by Hesiod : the other the whirlwind here mentioned. 

" By this Typhon was signified a mighty whirlwind, or inunda- 
tion. It had a relation to the deluge. In hieroglyphical de- 
scriptions, the dove was represented as hovering over the mun- 
dane egg which was exposed to the fury of Typhon : for an egg, 
containing in it the proper elements of life, was thought no im- 



THE THEOGONY. 135 

She, fill'd with love, conceived a progeny 

Of strain undaunted. Geryon's dog of herds, 

Orthrus, the first arose : the second birth, 

Unutterable, was the dog of hell : 

Blood-fed and brazen-voiced, and bold and strong, 

The fifty-headed Cerberus ; and third 

Upsprang the Hydra, pest of Lerna's lake : 

Whom Juno, white-arm'd goddess, fostering rear'd 

With deep resentment fill'd, insatiable, 

proper emblem of the ark, in which were preserved the rudiments 
of the future world." Bryant. 

Robinson is therefore manifestly wrong in proposing to sub- 
stitute avo.uov, lawless, for av£|Uo- , a wind : though the reading be 
countenanced by the Bodleian copy and the Florentine edition of 
Junta. 

The jifty-headed Cerberus.] Cerberus was the name of a 
place, though esteemed the dog of hell. We are told by 
Eusebius from Plutarch, that Cerberus was -the Sun : but the 
term properly signified the temple, or place, of the Sun. The 
great luminary was styled by the Amonians both Or and Abor ; 
that is, light, and the parent of light : and Cerberus is properly 
Kir-abor, the place of that deity. The same temple had dif- 
ferent names from the diversity of the god's titles, who was there 
worshipped. It was called Tor-caph-el; which was changed to 
TptxE<j>a\oc : and Cerberus was from hence supposed to have had 
three heads. Bryant. 

The poets increased the number of heads, as they seem to 
have thought a multitude of heads or arms sublimely terrific. 
Pindar out-does Hesiod by a whole fifty, and speaks of the 
hundred-headed Cerberus. £x»tov to. ni<$a\ov. 



136 REMAINS OF HKSIOD. 

'Gainst Hercules : but he, the son of Jove, 
Named of Amphytrion, in the dragon's gore 
Bathed his unpitying steel : by warlike aid 
Of Iolaus, and the counsels high 
Of Pallas the Despoiler. Last came forth 
Chimaera, breathing fire unquenchable : 
A monster grim and huge, and swift and strong : 
Her's were three heads : a glaring lion's one : 
One of a goat : a mighty snake's the third : 
In front the lion threatened, and behind 
The serpent, and the goat was in the midst, 
Exhaling fierce the strength of burning flame. 
But the wing'd Pegasus his rider bore, 
The brave Bellerophon, and laid her dead. 

Chimara, breathing Jire unquenchable.'] The same passage 
occurs in the 6th book of the Iliad. " In Lycia was the city 
Phaselis, situated upon the mountain Chimaera; which mountain 
was sacred to the god of fire. Phaselis is a compound of Phi, 
which in the Amonian language is a mouth or opening, and of 
Az-el : another name for Orus, the god of light. Phaselis sig- 
nifies a chasm of fire. The reason why this name was imposed 
may be seen in the history of the place. All the country around 
abounded in fiery eruptions. Chimaera is a compound of Cham- 
ur, the name of the deity, whose altar stood towards the top of 
the mountain. But the most satisfactory idea of it may be ob- 
tained from coins which were struck in its vicinity, and particu- 
larly describe it as a hollow and inflamed mountain." Bryakt. 



THE THEOGONY. 137 

She, grasp'd by forced embrace of Orthrus, gave 
Depopulating Sphinx, the mortal plague 
Of Cadmian nations : and the lion bare 
Named of Nemaea. Him Jove's glorious spouse 
To fierceness rear'd : and placed his secret lair 
Among Nemaea's hills, the pest of men. 
There lurking in his haunts he long ensnared 
The roving tribes of man, and held stern sway 
O'er cavern'd Tretum : o'er the mountain heights 
Of Apesantus, and Nemaea's wilds : 
Till strong Alcides quell'd his gasping strength. 

Now Ceto, in embrace with Phorcys, bare 
Her youngest born : the dreadful snake, that couch'd 
In the dark earth's abyss, his wide domain, 
Holds o'er the golden apples wakeful guard. 

Tethys to Ocean brought the rivers forth, 

Depopulating Sphinx.] The Nile begins to rise during the 
fall of the Abyssinian rains; when the sun is vertical over 
iEthiopia : and its waters are at their height of innundation 
when the sun is in the signs Leo and Virgo. The Egyptians 
seem to have invented a colossal representation of the two 
zodiacal signs, which served as a water-mark to point out the 
.risings of the Nile : and this biform emblem of a virgin and 
lion constituted the famous aenigma. 

Tethys to Ocean brought the rivers forth.] When towers were 
situated upon eminences fashioned very round, they were by the 
Amonians called Tith, answering to Titthos in Greek. They 



138 REMAINS OF HESlOD. 

In whirlpool waters roll'd : Eridanus 
Deep-eddied, and Alpheus, and the Nile : 
Fair-flowing Ister, Strymon, and Meander, 
Phasis and Rhesus : Achelous bright 
"With silver-circled tides : Heptaporus, 
And Nessus : Haliacmon and Rhodius : 
Granicus and the heavenly Simois : 
iEsapus, Hermus, and Sangarius vast : 
Pen e us, and Caicus smoothly flowing : 
And Ladon, and Parthenius, and Evenus : 
Ardescus, and Scamander the divine. 

Then bore she a blest race of Naiad nymphs, 
Who with the rivers and the king of day 
O'er the wide earth claim the shorn locks of youth : 
Their portion this and privilege from Jove. 
Admete, Pitho, Doris and Ianthe : 

were so denominated from their resemblance to a woman's breast, 
and were particularly sacred to Orus and Osiris, the deities of 
light, who by the Grecians were represented under the title of 
Apollo. Tethys, the ancient goddess of the sea, was nothing 
else but an old tower upon a mount. On this account it was 
called Tith-is, the mount of fire. Thetis seems to have been a 
transposition of the same name, and was probably a Pharos, or 
fire-tower, near the sea. Bryant. 

Claim the shorn locks.~\ It was the custom of the Greeks for 
adult youths to poll their hair as an offering to Apollo and the 
Rivers. 



THE THEOGONY. 139 

Urania heavenly-fair : and Clymene : 
Prymno, Electra, and Calliroe: 
Rhodia, Hippo, and Pasithoe: 
Plexaure, Clytie, and Melobosis: 
Idya, Thoe, Xeuxo, Galaxaure: 
And amiable Dione, and Circeis 
Of nature soft, and Polydora fair ; 
And Ploto, with the bright dilated eyes : 

And Ploto, with the bright dilated eyes.] Boa>rj?, ox-eyed : 
that is, with eyes artificially enlarged. Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxiii. 
6, speaks of the stibium or antimony as an astringent, especially 
as to the eye-lid : and mentions that it was called platyophthalmum, 
eye-opener: from its forming an ingredient in the washes of 
women, as it had the effect of opening or dilating the eye by 
contracting the lid. The modern Greek women retain the cus- 
tom. li Of the few that I have seen with an open veil or without 
one, the faces were remarkable for symmetry and brilliant com- 
plexion : with the nose straight and small : the eyes vivacious : 
either black or dark-blue : having the eyebrows, partly from 
nature, and as much from art, very full, and joining over the 
nose. They have a custom, too, of drawing a black line with 
a mixture of powder of antimony and oil above and under the 
eye-lashes in order to give the eye more fire." 

Dallaway, Constantinople Ancient and Modern. 

Strutt, in the general introduction to his " View of the Dress 
and Habits of the People of England," observes that the Moorish 
ladies in Barbary, the women in Arabia Felix, and those about 
Aleppo continue the same traditional custom of tinging the inside 
of the eye-lid. Dr. Russel describes the operation as effected 
" by means of a short smooth probe of ivory, wood, or silver; 



HO REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Perseis, Ianira, and Acaste : 

Xanthe, the sweet Petraea, saffron-robed 

Telestho, Metis, and Eurynome : 

And Crisie, and Menestho, and Europa: 

Lovely Calypso, Amphiro, Eudora: 

charged with a powder named the black Kohol. This substance 
is a kind of lead-ore brought from Persia : and is prepared by 
roasting it in a quince, an apple, or a truffle ; then, adding a few 
drops of oil of almonds, it is ground to a subtile powder on a 
marble. The probe being first dipped in water, a little of the 
powder is sprinkled on it. The middle part is then applied ho- 
rizontally to the eye, and the eye-lids being shut upon it, the 
probe is drawn through between them, leaving the inside tinged, 
and a black rim all round the edge. The Kohol is used likewise 
by the men : but not so generally by way of ornament merely : 
the practice being deemed rather effeminate. It is supposed to 
strengthen the sight and prevent various disorders of the eye." 

Natural History of Aleppo, vol. i. iii. 22. 
Mr. Gifford, in the notes to his admirable version of Juvenal, 
supposes the effeminate practice of the .Roman fops to assimilate 
with this : in the passage which he translates, 

Some with a tiring-pin their eye-brows dye, 

Till the full arch gives lustre to the eye. Sat. ii. 67. 

Juvenal, however, mentions only the painting of the eye- 
brows : unless by the epithet tremulous, trementes, which he 
applies to the eyes, he means to intimate the whole operation, 
and the eye-ball quivering under the application of the needle. 

In the second book of Kings, ix. 30, when it is said " Jezebel 
painted her face," the Septuagint has it, " she antimonized her 
eyes : " Eg-i/^fx^aro rug of8a}s t uu; aimj?. 



THE THEOGONY. 141 

Asia, and Tyche, and Ocyroe : 

And Styx, the chief of oceanic streams. 

The daughters these of Tethys and of Ocean, 
The eldest-born : for more untold remain : 
Three-thousand graceful Oceanides 
Long-stepping tread the earth : or far and wide 
Dispersed, they haunt the glassy depth of lakes, 
A glorious sisterhood of goddess birth. 
As many rivers also, yet untold, 
Rushing with hollow-dashing echoes, rose 

Long-stepping tread the earth.] The Greeks, as appears from 
their female epithets, were very attentive to the form of the 
ankle, and the manner of walking : and a long step, no less 
than a well-turned ankle, as implying a tallness of figure, was 
thought characteristic of graceful beauty. 

The glassy depth of lakes.] All fountains were esteemed 
sacred : but especially those which had any preternatural qua- 
lity and abounded with exhalations. It was an universal notion 
that a divine energy proceeded from the effluvia ; and that the 
persons who resided in their vicinity were gifted with a prophetic 
quality. Fountains of this nature, from the divine influence 
with which they were supposed to abound, the Amonians styled 
Ain-omphe, or oracular fountain. These terms the Greeks con- 
tracted to numphe, a nymph : and supposed such a person to be 
an inferior goddess who presided over waters. Hot springs were 
imagined to be more immediately under the inspection of the 
nymphs. Another name for these places was Ain-Ades, the 
fountain of Ades or the Sun ; which in like manner was changed 
to Naiades, a species of deities of the same class. Bryant, 



142 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

From awful Tethys: but their every name 

Is not for mortal man to memorate, 

Arduous ; yet known to all the borderers round. 

Now Thia, yielding to Hyperion's arms, 
Bare the great Sun and the refulgent Moon : 
And Morn, that scatters wide the rosy light 
To men that walk the earth, and deathless gods 
Whose mansion is yon ample firmament. 

Eurybia, noble goddess, blending love 
With Crius, gave the great Astraeus birth, 
Pallas the god, and Perses, wise in lore. 

The Morning to Astraeus bare the Winds 
Of spirit untamed: East, West, and South, and North 

East, West, and South, and North.] . Le Clerc and the genera- 
lity of editors suppose Hesiod to omit the east-wind entirely : 
and consider apys^su as an epithet, signifying swift or serene : 
as the term is so used by Homer. Graevius quotes a subsequent 
line of the Theogony as authority for apya$-»c being so used by 
Hesiod also : but there is evidence for apyern; being the name of 
a wind ; though Aulus Gellius and Pliny suppose it to be a west- 
wind, called by the Latins Caurus. Aristotle also, as is ob- 
served by the Monthly Reviewer, describes the a.pyi<rn* as a 
westerly wind, which blows from that part of the heaven in 
which the sun sets at the summer solstice : and adds that by 
some it is called Olympias, by others Iapyx. We see however 
from this very passage of Aristotle, that the names of winds 
were capricious and arbitrary : and in fact almost every district 
in Greece called the winds by names different from those which 



THE THEOGONY. 143 

Cleaving his rapid course : a goddess thus 
Embracing with a god. Last, Lucifer 
Sprang radiant from the dawn- appearing Morn : 
And all the glittering stars that gird the heaven. 

Styx, ocean-nymph, with Pallas mingling love, 
Bare Victory, whose feet are beautiful 
In palaces : and Zeal, and Strength, and Force, 
Illustrious children. Not apart from Jove 
Their mansion is : nor is there seat, or way, 



the neighbouring district used. The same critic observes that in 
a note to the word rxetpav (Caurus), in Alberti's edition of He- 
sychius, an opinion is intimated that cp/scn,- is properly an 
easterly wind, aTrvMwrns avty.o<;'. nor can there be the least doubt 
of the matter, in so far as regards Hesiod. The London Re- 
viewer, indeed, remarks that " the omission of the wind would 
be no proof of Hesiod's ignorance of its existence : a similar 
omission occurs in the Psalms. " Promotion cometh neither 
from the east, nor the west, nor yet from the south." But it is 
forgotten that Hesiod is describing the genealogy of the winds : 
and it is very inconceivable that one of the four cardinal winds 
should have escaped his notice. The editions of Stephens and 
Trincavellus read 

N03-.JH NOTtf, BopEW Tf, HO.I Ap>£?-»> '/EfVptf TE : 

instead of apyarea) zsfi-psio: and I have no doubt that this is the 
true reading. 

Not apart from Jove 

Their mansion is. ] So Callimachus^. 

Hymn to Jupiter : 



144 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

But he before them in his glory sits 
Or passes forth : and where the Thunderer is, 
Their place is found for ever. So devised 
The nymph of Ocean, the eternal Styx : 
What time the Lightning-sender call'd from heaven, 
And summon'd all th' immortal deities 
To broad Olympus' top : then thus he spake : 
" Hear all ye gods ! That god who wars with me 
Against the Titans, shall retain the gifts 
Which Saturn gave, and honours heretofore 
His portion midst th' immortals : and whoe'er 
Unhonour'd and ungifted has repined 
Under Saturnian sway, the same shall rise, 
" As just it is, to honours and rewards." 
Then first of every power eternal Styx, 
Sway'd by the careful counsels of her sire, 
Stood on Olympus, and her sons beside : 
Her Jove received with honour, and endowed 
With goodly gifts : ordain'd her the great oath 
Of deities : her sons for evermore 

No lots have made thee king above all gods : 
But works of thy own hands : thy Strength and Force, 
Whom thou hast, therefore, stationed next thy throne. 

Strength and Force are introduced by j^schylus as characters, 
in the first scene of his " Prometheus Chained." 



THE THEOGONY. 145 

Indwellers with himself. Alike to all, 

Even as he pledged that sacred word, the god 

Perform'd ; so reigns he, strong in power and might. 

Now Phcebe sought the love-delighting couch 
Of Cceus : so within a god's embrace 
Conceived the goddess. Then arose to life 
The azure-robed Latona : ever mild : 
Gracious to man and to immortal gods : 
Mild from the first beginning of the world : 
Gentlest of all within th' Olympian courts. 

Anon she bare Asteria, blest in fame : 
Whom Perses to his spacious palace led, 
That he might call her spouse : and she conceived 
With Hecate. Her o'er all others Jove 

Asteria, blest in fame.'] According to Callimachus Asteria was 
metamorphosed into the Isle of Delos : a term which alludes to 
its appearing after having been submerged in the sea: ^Xcr, 
visible. Asteria is from amp a star. 

Asteria was thy name 
Of old : since like a star from heaven on high 
Thou didst leap down precipitate within 
A fathomless abyss of waters, flying 
From nuptial violence of Jove. Hymn to Delos. 

She conceived 

With Hecate. ] Exam was a 

title of Diana, as txaro; of Apollo : from g*a? far off: alluding 
to the distance to which the sun and moon dart their rays. This 

L 



146 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Hath honour d, and endow'd with splendid gifts : 
With power on earth and o'er the untill'd sea : 

goddess is represented in ancient sculptures as three females 
joined in one, with various attributes in their hands : this triple 
figure was combined of the three characters sustained by the 
moon : who was Selene or Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, 
and Proserpine in the subterranean regions. Luna is said by 
Cicero to be the same as Lucina, the goddess of child-bearing : 
a title given also to Diana and Juno. Hecate has also assigned 
to her by Hesiod the office of foster-mother of children. This 
may be explained partly by the reckoning of pregnant women 
being guided by the number of lunar periods ; and partly by the 
emblematic character of the moon, as an object of worship. 

" The moon was a type of the ark : the sacred ship of Osiris 
being represented in the form of a crescent, of which the moon 
was made an emblem. Selene was* the reputed mother of the 
world, as Plutarch confesses : which character cannot be made 
in any degree to correspond with the planet. Selene was the 
same as Isis : the same also as Rhea, Vesta, Cubele, and Da- 
mater, or Ceres." Bryant. 

These female deities not only melt into each other, but at last 
resolve themselves into the one Zeus : so that the lunar ido- 
latry is absorbed ultimately in the solar. " The patriarch had the 
names of Meen or Menes ; which signify a moon, and was 
worshipped all over the east as Deus Lunus. Strabo mentions 
several temples of this lunar god in different places : all these 
were dedicated to the same Arkite deity, called Lunus, Luna, 
and Selene. The same deity was both masculine and feminine : 
what was Deus Lunus in one country was Dea Luna in another. 
Meen was also one of the most ancient titles of the ^Egyptian 
Osiris ; the same as Apollo." Bryant. 

The sacred bull Apis is figured in the ancient coins and sculp- 



THE THEOGONY. 147 

Nor less her glory from the starry heaven, 

Chief honour'd by immortals : and if one 

Of earthly men performing the due rite 

Of victim divination, would appease 

The gods above, he calls on Hecate* : 

To him, whose prayer the goddess gracious hears, 

High honour comes spontaneous, and to him 

She yields all affluence ; for the power is hers. 

Whatever gods, the sons of heaven and earth, 

Shared honour at the hands of Jove, o'er all 

Her wide allotment stands : nor whatsoe'er 

tures, with a crescent moon upon his head instead of horns : by 
which the great restorer of husbandry, Noah, was connected 
with the ark in which he had been miraculously preserved ; and 
of which the lunar crescent was an emblem. 

Her wide allotment stands.] The other gods were either ce- 
lestial, terrestrial, marine, or subterranean : but the divinity of 
Hecate pervaded heaven, earth, and the abyss, from her being 
intermixed with Luna, Dian, and Proserpine : and the sea, 
from the moon influencing the tides. She was invoked at sa- 
crifices, probably, as presiding over divination from the entrails 
of beasts : because she was the patroness of magical rites and 
incantations : from such ceremonies being performed in the se- 
crecy of night by the light of the moon. The Greeks, on every 
new moon, were accustomed to spread a feast in the cross-ways, 
which was carried away by the poor: this was called " Hecate's 
supper ;" and was said to have been eaten by Hecate, See 
Aristophanes, Plutus. 

l2 



148 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Of rank she held, midst the old Titan gods, 
Has Saturn's son invaded or deprived ; 
As was the ancient heritage of power 
So hers remains : e'en from the first of things. 
Nor is her solitary birth reproach : 
Nor less, though singly born, her rank and power 
In heaven and earth and main, but higher meed 
Of glory, since her honour is from Jove. 
She, in the greatness of her power, is nigh 
With aid to whom she lists : whoe'er she wills 
O'er the great council of the people shines : 
And when the mailed men arise to wage 
Destroying battle, she to whom she lists 
Is present, yielding victory and fame ; 
And on the judgment-seat with awful kings 
She sits ; and when in the gymnastic strife 
Men struggle, the propitious goddess comes 
Present with aid : then easily the man, 
Conqueror in hardiment and strength, obtains 
The graceful wreath, and glad-triumphing sheds 

Her solitary birth.] This alludes to the honour and the pri- 
vileges attached by the ancients to numerous children. The 
moon is said to be single in birth, as the only planet of the same 
apparent size and lustre. 



THE THE0G0NY. 149 

A gleam of glory o'er his parents' days. 

She, as she lists, is nigh to charioteers 

Who strive with steeds : and voyagers who cleave 

Through the blue watery vast th' untractable way. 

They call upon the name of Hecate* 

With vows : and his, loud-sounding god of waves, 

Earth-shaker Neptune. Easily at will 

The glorious goddess yields the woodland prey 

Abundant : easily, while scarce they start 

On the mock'd vision, snatches them in flight. 

She too with Hermes is propitious found 

To herd and fold : and bids increase the droves 

Innumerable of goats and woolly flocks, 

A gleam of glory o'er his parents' days.] The odes of Pindar 
are traditional records of the glory attached by the Greeks to the 
conquerors in their games : a glory which extended to their 
parents and connexions, and even to the city in which they were 
born. Cicero describes the return from an Olympic victory as 
equivalent to a Roman triumph. The victor in fact rode in a 
triumphal chariot, and entered through a breach in the walls 
into the city : which Plutarch explains to signify that walls are 
useless with such defenders. The same writer relates, that a 
Spartan meeting Diagoras, who had been crowned in the Olympic 
games, and had seen his sons and grand-children crowned after 
him, exclaimed, " Die Diagoras ! for thou canst not be a god." 
A memorial on the gymnastic exercises of the Greeks will be 
found in the " Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles 
Lettres," torn. i. 286. 



150 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And swells their numbers or their numbers thins. 
And thus, although her mother's lonely child, 
She midst th' immortals shares all attributes. 
Her Jove appointed nursing-mother bland 
Of babes, who after her to morn's broad light 
Should lift the tender lid : so from the first 
The foster-nurse of babes : her honours these. 

Embraced by Saturn, Rhea gave to light 
Illustrious children. Golden-sandal'd Juno, 
Ceres, and Vesta : Pluto strong, who dwells 

Golden-sandal 'd Juno.~\ Juno was the same as Iona : and she 
was particularly styled Juno of Argus. Argus was one of the 
terms by which, the ark was distinguished. The Grecians called 
her Hera; which was not originally a proper name, but a title : 
the same as Ada of the Babylonians ; and expressed " the 
Lady " or " Queen." She was the same as Luna or Selene, from 
her connexion with the ark; and at Samos she was described 
as standing in a lunette, with the lunar emblem on her head. 
She was sometimes worshipped under the symbol of an egg : so 
that her history had the same reference as that of Venus. She 
presided equally over the seas, which she was supposed to calm 
or trouble. Isis, Io, and Ino were the same as Juno, and Venus 
also was the same deity under a different title. Hence in Laco- 
nia there was an ancient statue of the goddess styled Venus 
Junonia. Juno was also called Cupris, and under that title was 
worshipped by the Hetrurians. As Juno was the same with Iona 
we need not wonder at the Iris being her concomitant. Bryant. 

Ceres, and Vesta.] Ceres was the deity of fire ; hence at 
Cnidus she was called Cura: a title of the Sun. The Roman 



THE THEOGONY. 151 

In mansions under earth : of ruthless heart ; 
Earth-shaker Neptune, loud with dashing waves : 

name Ceres, expressed by Hesychius Gerys, was by the Dorians 
more properly rendered Garis. It was originally the name of a 
city called Charis : for many of the deities were erroneously 
called by the names of the places where they were worshipped. 
Charis is Char-is, the city of fire : the place where Orus and 
Hephaistus were worshipped. It may after this seem extraor- 
dinary that she should ever be esteemed the goddess of corn. 
This notion arose from the Greeks not understanding their own 
theology. The towers of Ceres were P'urtain or Prutaneia : so 
called from the fires which were perpetually there preserved. 
The Grecians interpreted this purou tameion : and rendered what 
was a temple, a granary of corn. In consequence of this, 
though they did not abolish the ancient usage of the place, they 
made it a repository of grain ; from whence they gave largesses 
to the people. In early times the corn there deposited seems to 
have been for the priests or divines : but this was only a secon- 
dary use to which these places were adapted. They were pro- 
perly sacred towers, where a perpetual fire was preserved. It was 
sacred to Hestia, the Vesta of the Romans, which was only 
another title for Damater or Ceres : and the sacred hearth had 
the same name. Bryant. 

Pluto strong.] " Some," says Diodorus, " think that Osiris is 
Serapis : others that he is Dionusus : others still that he is Pluto : 
many take him for Zeus or Jupiter, and not a few for Pan." 
This was an unnecessary embarrassment, for they were all titles 
of the same god. Pluto, among the best mythologists, was 
esteemed the same as Jupiter ; and indeed the same as Proserpine, 
Ceres, Hermes, Apollo, and every other deity. Bryant. 

Earth-shaker Neptune.] The patriarch was commemorated 



152 REMAINS OF HESIOD, 

And Jupiter th' all-wise : the sire of gods 

And men ; beneath whose crashing thunder-peal 

The wide earth rocks in elemental war. 

But them, as issuing from the sacred womb 

They touch'd the mother's knees, did Saturn huge 

Devour : revolving in his troubled thought 

by the name of Poseidon. Under the character of Neptune 
Genesius he had a temple in Argolis : hard by was a spot of 
ground called the place of descent; similar to the place on 
mount Ararat, mentioned by Josephus ; and undoubtedly named 
from the same ancient history. The tradition of the people of 
Argolis was, that it was so called because in this spot Danaus 
made his first descent from the ship in which he came over. 
In Arcadia was a temple of" Neptune looking-out." Poseidon god 
of the sea was also reputed the chief god, the deity of fire. 
This we may infer from his priest; who was styled P'urcon. 
P'urcon is the lord of fire or light ; and from the name of the 
priest we may know the department of the god. He was no 
other than the supreme deity, the Sun: from whom all may 
be supposed to descend. Hence Neptune in the Orphic verses is, 
like Zeus or Jupiter, styled the father of gods and men. Bryant. 
Jupiter tti all-wise. ,] In the Orphic fragments both Jove and 
Bacchus are identified with the Sun : which is described as the 
source of all things. Hammon, the African Jupiter, is men- 
tioned by Lucan ; who specifies his having horns. These were 
the lunar crescent of Apis or Osiris, the Arkite god. The pa- 
triarch, his son Ham, and his grandson Chus, are reciprocally 
mixed with each other ; in the same manner as the ark and the 
dove : the moon, the sun, and the typical serpent, are often 
mixed and confounded in this hieroglyphical mythology. 



THE THEOGONY. 153 

Lest other one of beings heavenly-born 

Usurp the kingly honours. For from earth 

And starry heaven the rumour met his ear, 

That it was doom'd by Fate, strong though he were, 

To his own son he should bow down his strength. 

To his own son he should bow down his strength.] Although 
the Romans made a distinction between Janus and Saturn they 
were two titles of one and the same person. The former had the 
emarkable characteristic of being the author of time, and the 
god of the new year : the latter also was looked upon as the 
author of time, and held in his hand a serpent, whose tail was 
in his mouth and formed a circle : by which emblem was de- 
noted the renovation of the year. On their coins they were 
equally represented with keys in their hand and a ship near them. 
Janus was described with two faces : the one that of an aged 
man ; the other that of a youthful personage. Saturn as of an 
uncommon age with hair white like snow : but they had a notion 
that he would return to infancy. He is also said to have de- 
stroyed all things : which however were restored with vast in- 
crease. Bryant. 

The faces of Janus, supposed to look to the time past and 
that which is to come, evidently regard the sera before the flood 
and that after it : and the aged and youthful visage represent the 
old world and the new. The keys may allude to the shutting up 
the productions of the earth, and again opening them. The ship 
is the ark. The story of Saturn and the infant Jupiter involves 
similar allusions. The old god devouring his children signi- 
ficantly points to the destruction of the human race. Saturn and 
Jupiter seem only separate personifications of the double visage 
of Janus : and the infant Jupiter personifies the second infancy 
of Saturn. The new order of things which took place on the 



154? REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Jove's wisdom this fulfill'd. No blind design 

He therefore cherish'd, and in crooked craft 

Devour'd his children. But on Rhea prey'd 

Never-forgotten anguish. When the time 

Was full, and Jove, the sire of gods and men, 

Came to the birth, her parents she besought, 

Earth and starr'd Heaven, that they should counsel 

yield 
How secretly the babe may spring to life : 
And how the father's furies 'gainst his race 
In subtlety devour'd may meet revenge : 
They to their daughter listen'd and complied : 
Unfolding what the Fates had sure decreed 
Of kingly Saturn and his dauntless son : 
And her they sent to Lyctus : to the clime 
Of fallow'd Crete. Now when her time was come, 
The birth of Jove her youngest-born, vast Earth 
Took to herself the mighty babe, to rear 
With nurturing softness in the spacious isle 
Of Crete. So came she then, transporting him 
With the swift shades of night, to Lyctus first : 
And thence, upbearing in her arms, conceal'd 

renovation of nature is typified in the dethronement of the aged 
monarch by his youthful son. 



THE THEOGONY. 15.5 

Beneath the sacred ground, in sunless cave, 

Where shagg'dwith thick ening wood sth'Egaean mount 

Impends. Then swathing an enormous stone 

She placed it in the hands of Heaven's huge son, 

The ancient king of gods : that stone he snatch'd ; 

And in his ravening breast convey'd away : 

Wretch ! nor bethought him that the stone supplied 

His own son's place ; survivor in its room, 

Unconquer'd and unharm'd : the same, who soon 

Subduing him with mightiness of arm, 

Should drive him from his state, and reign himself 

King of immortals. Swiftly grew the strength 

And hardy limbs of that same kingly babe : 

And when the great year had fulfill'd its round, 

Gigantic Saturn, wily as he was, 

Yet foil'd by Earth's considerate craft, and quell'd 

By his son's arts and strength, released his race : 

The stone he first disgorged, the last devour'd : 

This Jove on earth's broad surface firmly fix'd 

At Pythos the divine, in the deep cleft 

Of high Parnassus : to succeeding times 

A monument, and miracle to man. 



To succeeding times 



A monument. * ] The stone, 



156 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The brethren of his father too he loosed, 

Whom Heaven, their sire, had in his frenzy bound : 

They the good deed in grateful memory bore : 

And gave the thunder, and the burning bolt, 

And lightning, which vast Earth had heretofore 

Hid in her central caves. In these confides 

The god, and reigns o'er deities and men. 

Iapetus ascends the bed of love 
With Clymene, fair-ankled ocean-nymph : 
She brought forth Atlas : her undaunted son : 
Glorying Mencetius and Prometheus vers'd 
In changeful turns and shifting subtleties : 
And Epimetheus of unwary mind : 
Who from old time became an evil curse 
To man's inventive race ; for he received 
The clay-form'd virgin-woman sent from Jove. 
All-seeing Jove struck with his smouldering flash 

which Saturn was supposed to have swallowed instead of a child, 
stood according to Pausanias at Delphi : it was esteemed very 
sacred, and used to have libations of wine poured upon it daily : 
and upon festivals was otherwise honoured. The purport of the 
above history I take to have been this. It was for a long time 
the custom to offer children at the altar of Saturn : but in pro- 
cess of time they removed it, and in. its form erected a stone 
pillar, before which they made their vows, and offered sacrifices 
of another nature. Bryant. 



' 



THE THEOGONY. 157 

Haughty Mencetius, and cast down to hell ; 

Shameless in crime and arrogant in strength. 

Atlas, enforced by stem necessity, 

Props the broad heaven: on earth's far borders, where 

Full opposite th' Hesperian virgins sing 

With shrill sweet voice, he rears his head and hands 

Aye unfatiguable : Heaven's counsellor 

So doom'd his lot. But with enduring chains 

He bound Prometheus, train'd in shifting wiles, 

Props the broad heaven.] " This Atlas," says Maximus Tyrius, 
" is a mountain, with a cavity of a tolerable height, which the 
natives esteem both as a temple and a deity : and it is the great 
object by which they swear, and to which they pay their de- 
votions." The cave in the mountain was certainly named Coel, 
the house of god : equivalent to Ccelus of he Romans : and this 
was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. Bryant. 

He hound Prometheus.] Prometheus, who renewed the race 
of men, was Noos, or Noah. Prometheus raised the first altar to 
the gods, constructed the first ship, and transmitted to posterity 
many useful inventions. He was supposed to have lived at the 
time of the deluge, and to have been guardian of iEgypt at that 
season. He was the same as Osiris, the great husbandman, the 
planter of the vine, and inventor of the plough. Prometheus is 
said to have been exposed on mount Caucasus, near Colchis, 
with an eagle placed over him, preying on his heart. These 
strange histories are undoubtedly taken from the symbols and 
devices which were carved upon the front of the ancient Amo- 
nian temples, and especially those of iEgypt. The eagle and 
vulture were the insignia of that country. We are told by Orus 
Apollo that a heart over burning coals was an emblem of iEgypt. 



158 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

With galling shackles fixing him aloft 
Midway a column. Down he sent from high 
His eagle hovering on expanded wings : 
She gorged his liver : still beneath her beak 
Immortal ; for it sprang with life, and grew 
In the night-season, and repair'd the waste 
Of what the wide-wing'd bird devour'd by day. 
But her the fair Alcmena's hardy son 
Slew ; from Prometheus drove the cruel plague, 
And freed him from his pangs. Olympian Jove, 
Who reigns on high, consented to the deed ; 
That thence yet higher glory might arise, 
O'er peopled earth, to Hercules of Thebes : 
And in his honour, Jove now made to cease 
The wrath he felt before ; 'gainst him who strove 
In wisdom e'en with Saturn's mighty son. 
Of yore when strife arose for sacrifice, 
Twixt gods and men, within Mecona's walls, 
Prometheus wilful parted a huge ox 

The history of Tityus, Prometheus, and many other poetical 
personages was certainly taken from hieroglyphics misunderstood 
and badly explained. Prometheus was worshipped by the Col- 
chians as a deity, and had a temple and high place upon mount 
Caucasus : and the device upon the portal was ^Egyptian, an 
eagle over a heart. Bryant. 

Parted a huge or.] Pliny, book vii. ch, 56, speaks of Pro- 



THE THEOGONY. 159 

And set before the god : so tempting him 

With purpose to deceive : for here he laid 

The unctuous substance, entrails, and the flesh 

Close cover'd with the belly of the hide : 

There the white bones he craftily disposed ; 

And with the marrowy substance wrapt them round. 

Then spake the father of the gods and men : 

" Son of Iapetus ! " thou famous god ! 

How partial, friend ! are thy divided shares ! " 

So in rebuke spoke Jupiter : whose thoughts 

Of wisdom perish not. Then answer'd him 

Wily Prometheus, with a laugh suppress'd, 

And well remembering his insidious fraud : 

" Hail glorious Jove ! thou mightiest of the gods 

WTio shall endure for ever : choose the one 

Which now the spirit in thy breast persuades." 

He spoke, revolving treachery. Jove, whose thoughts 

Of wisdom perish never, knew the guile, 

metheus as the first who slaughtered an ox. This traditionary 
circumstance is agreeable to that passage in scriptural history, 
where Noah receives the divine permission to kill animals for 
food : and Hesiod's tale of the division of the ox may be only a 
disfigured representation of the first sacrifice after the flood. 
The affinity of Iapetus, the father of Prometheus, with Japher, 
is very remarkable. This confusion of personages has been 
already noticed as common in the ancient mythology. 



160 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Not unforewarn'd : and straight his soul devised 

Evil to mortals, that should surely be : 

He raised the snowy portion with his hands, 

And felt his spirit wroth : yea, anger seiz'd 

His spirit, when he saw the whitening bones 

O'erlaid with cunning artifice : and thence, 

E'en from that hour, the dwellers upon earth 

Consume the whitening bones, when climbs the smoke 

Wreath'd from their flaming altars. Then again 

Cloud-gatherer Jove with indignation spake : 

" Son of Iapetus ! of all most wise ! 

Still, friend ! rememberest thou thy arts of guile ? " 

So spake, incensed, the god, whose wisdom yields 

To no decay : and from that very hour, 

Remembering still the treachery, he denied 

The strength of indefatigable fire 

To all the dwellers upon earth. But him 

Benevolent Prometheus did beguile : 

For in a hollow reed he stole from high 

The far-seen splendour of unwearied flame. 

Then deep resentment stung the Thunderer's soul ; 

And his heart chafed in anger, when he saw 

The fire far-gleaming in the midst of men. 

And for the flame restored, he straight devised 









THE THEOGONY. 161 

A mischief to mankind. At Jove's behest 

Famed Vulcan fashion'd from the yielding clay 

A bashful virgin's likeness : and the maid 

Of azure eyes, Minerva, round her waist 

Clasp'd the broad zone, and dress'd her limbs in robe 

Of flowing whiteness ; placed upon her head 

A wondrous veil of variegated threads ; 

Entwined amidst her hair delicious wreaths 

Of verdant herbage and fresh-blooming flowers ; 

And set a golden mitre on her brow ; 

Which Vulcan framed, and with adorning hands 

Wrought, at the pleasure of his father Jove. 

Rich-labour'd figures, marvellous to sight, 

Enchased the border : forms of beasts that range 

The earth, and fishes of the rolling deep : 

Of these innumerable he there had graven ; 

And exquisite the beauty of his art 

Shone in these wonders, like to animals 

Moving in breath, with vocal sounds of life. 

Now when his plastic hand instead of good 

Had framed this beauteous bane, he led her forth 

Where were the other gods and mingled men. 

She went exulting in her graced array, 

Which Pallas, daughter of a mighty sire, 

M 



162 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Known by her eyes of azure, had bestow'd. 
On gods and men in that same moment seiz'd 
The ravishment of wonder, when they saw 
The deep deceit, th' inextricable snare. 
From her the sex of tender woman springs : 
Pernicious is the race : the woman tribe 
Dwell upon earth, a mighty bane to men : 
No mates for wasting want, but luxury : 
And as within the close-roof'd hive, the drones, 
Helpers of sloth, are pamper'd by the bees ; 
These all the day, till sinks the ruddy sun, 

Pernicious is the race.~\ Lord Kaimes, in his sketches of the 
History of Man, i. 6. observes that in the more polished age 
of Greece women were treated with but little consideration by 
their husbands : and female influence was confined to the artful 
accomplishments of courtezans. But it was very different at an 
earlier sera of society. " Women in the Homeric age/' remarks 
Mr. Mitford, " enjoyed more freedom, and communicated more in 
business and amusement among men, than in after-ages has been 
usual in those eastern countries ; far more than at Athens, in the 
flourishing times of the commonwealth. Equally, indeed, 
Homer's elegant eulogies and Hesiod's severe sarcasm prove 
women to have been in their days important members of society." 

Milton has imitated this description of the infelicities sup- 
posed to be produced by woman-kind, in a prophetic complaint, 
which comes with beautiful propriety from the lips of Adam : 
and which his own domestic unhappiness enabled him to express 
with feeling. 



THE THEOGONY. 163 

Haste on the wing, " their murmuring labours ply," 
And still cement the white and waxen comb : 
Those lurk within the cover'd hive, and reap 
With glutted maw the fruits of others' toil ; 
Such evil did the Thunderer send to man 
In woman's form, and so he gave the sex, 
111 helpmates of intolerable toils. 
Yet more of ill instead of good he gave : 
The man who shunning wedlock thinks to shun 
The vexing cares that haunt the woman-state, 
And lonely waxes old, shall feel the want 
Of one to foster his declining years : 
Though not his life be needy, yet his death 
Shall scatter his possessions to strange heirs, 
And aliens from his blood. Or if his lot 
Be marriage, and his spouse of modest fame, 
Congenial to his heart, e'en then shall ill 
For ever struggle with the partial good, 
And cling to his condition. But the man, 
Who gains the woman of injurious kind, 
Lives bearing in his secret soul and heart 
Inevitable sorrow : ills so deep 
As all the balms of medicine cannot cure. 
Therefore it is not lawful to elude 
m 2 



164 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The eye of Heaven, nor mock th' Omniscient Mind. 
For not Prometheus, the benevolent, 
Gould shun Heaven's heavy wrath : and vain were all 
His arts of various wisdom : vain to 'scape 
Necessity, or loose the mighty chain. 

When Heaven their sire 'gainst Cottus, Briareus, 
And Gyges, felt his moody anger chafe 
Within him, sore amazed with that their strength 
Immeasurable? their aspect fierce, and bulk 
Gigantic, with a chain of iron force 
He bound them down ; and fix'd their dwelling-place 
Beneath the spacious ground : beneath the ground 
They dwelt in pain and durance : in th' abyss 
There sitting, where earth's utmost bound'ries end. 
Full long oppress'd with mighty grief of heart 
They brooded o'er their woes : but them did Jove 
Saturnian, and those other deathless gods 
Whom fair-hair'd Rhea bare to Saturn's love, 
By policy of Earth, lead forth again 
To light. For she successive all things told : 
How with the giant brethren they should win 
Conquest and splendid glory. Long they fought 
With toil soul-harrowing : they the deities 
Titanic and Saturnian : each to each 



THE THEOGONY. 165 

Opposed, in valour of promiscuous war. 
From Othrys' lofty summit warr'd the host 
Of glorious Titans : from Olympus they, 



■The host 



Of glorious Titans. ] The giants, whom 

Abydenus makes the builders of Babel, are by other writers re- 
presented as the Titans. They are said to have received their 
name from their mother Titaea : by which we are to understand 
that they were denominated from their religion and place of 
worship. The ancient altars consisted of a conical hill of earth, 
in the shape of a woman's breast. Titaea was one of these. It 
is a term compounded of Tit-aia, and signifies literally a breast 
of earth. These altars were also called Tit-an, and Tit-anis, 
from the great fountain of night, styled An and Anis: hence 
many places were called Titanis and Titana where the worship 
of the sun prevailed. By these giants and Titans are always 
meant the sons of Ham and Chus. That the sons of Chus were 
the chief agents both in erecting the tower of Babel, and in 
maintaining principles of rebellion, is plain : for it is said of 
Nirarod, the son of Chus, that " the beginning of his kingdom 
was Babel." The sons of Chus would not submit to the divine 
dispensation in the original disposition of the several families : 
and Nimrod, who first took upon him regal state, drove Ashur 
from his demesnes, and forced him to take shelter in the higher 
parts of Mesopotamia. This was their first act of rebellion and 
apostacy. Their second was to erect a lofty tower, as a land- 
mark to repair to, as a token to direct them, and prevent their 
being scattered abroad. It was an idolatrous temple, erected in 
honour of the sun, and called the tower of Bel : as the city, 
from its consecration to the sun, was named Bel-on : the city of 
the solar god. Their intention was to have founded a great, if 
not an universal, empire : but their purpose was defeated by 



166 REMAINS OF HJBSIOD. 

The band of gift-dispensing deities 

Whom fair-hair'd Rhea bore to Saturn's love. 

the confounding of their labial utterance. By this judgment they 
were dispersed ; the tower was deserted ; and the city left 
unfinished. These circumstances seem, in great measure, to be 
recorded by the gentile writers. They add, that a war soon after 
commenced between the Titans and the family of Zeuth. 
This was no other than the war mentioned by Moses ; which was 
carried on by four kings of the family of Shem against the sons 
of Ham and Chus. The dispersion from Babylonia had weak- 
ened the Cuthites. The house of Shem took advantage of their 
dissipation, and recovered the land of Shinar, which had been 
unduly usurped by their enemies. After this success they pro- 
ceeded farther : and attacked the Titans in all their quarters. 
After a contest of some time they made them tributaries : but 
upon their rising in rebellion, after a space of thirteen years, the 
confederates made a fresh inroad into their countries. " Twelve 
years they served Chedorlaomer : and in the thirteenth they re- 
belled : and in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the 
kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashtaroth 
Karnaim ; " who were no other than the Titans. They were 
accordingly rendered by the Seventy, " the giant brood of Ash- 
taroth : " and the valley of the Rephaim, in Samuel, is trans- 
lated " the valley of the Titans." From the sacred historians 
we may then infer that there were two periods of this war. The 
first, when the king of Elam and his associates laid the Rephaim 
under contribution : the other, when, upon their rebellion, they 
reduced them a second time to obedience. The first part is 
mentioned by several ancient writers, and is said to have lasted 
ten years. Hesiod takes notice of both, but makes the first 
rather of longer duration : 
v Ten years and more they sternly strove in arms. 



THE THEOGONY. 167 

So waged they war soul-harrowing : each with each 
Ten years and more the furious battle join'd, 
Unintermitted : nor to either host 
Was issue of stern strife or end : alike 
Did either stretch the limit of the war. 

But now when Jove had set before his powers 
All things befitting ; the repast of gods ; 
The nectar and ambrosia, in each breast 
Th' heroic spirit kindled : and now all 
With nectar and with sweet ambrosia filPd, 
Thus spake the father of the gods and men : 
" Hear me ! illustrious race of Earth and Heaven ! 
That what the spirit in my bosom prompts 
I now may utter. Long, and day by day, 
Confronting each the other, we have fought 

In the second engagement the poet informs us that the Titans 
were quite discomfited and ruined : and according to the my- 
thology of the Greeks, they were condemned to reside in Tar- 
tarus, at the extremity of the known world. A large body of 
Titanians, after their dispersion, settled in Mauritania : which is 
the region called Tartarus. The mythologists adjudged the 
Titans to the realms of night merely from not attending to the 
purport of the term £o<{>c?. This word described the West, and 
it signified also darkness. From this secbndary acceptation the 
Titans of the West were consigned to the realms of night : being 
situated, with respect to Greece towards the regions of the set- 
ting sun. Bryant. 



( 



r> 



168 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

For conquest and dominion : Titan gods, 
And we the seed of Saturn. Still do ye, 
. Fronting the Titans in funereal war, 
Show mighty strength : invulnerable hands : 
Remembering that mild friendship, and those pangs 
Remembering, when ye trod the upward way 
Back to the light : and by our counsels broke 
" The burthening chain, and left the murky gloom." 

He spake : and Cottus brave of soul replied : 
" Oh Jove august ! not darkly hast thou said : 
Nor know we not how excellent thou art 
In counsel and in knowledge : thou hast been 
Deliverer of immortals from a curse 
Of horror : by thy wisdom have we risen, 
Oh kingly son of Saturn ! from dark gloom 
And bitter bonds, unhoping of relief. 
Then with persisting spirit and device 
Of prudent warfare, shall we still assert 
Thy empire midst the fearful fray, and still 
" In hardy conflict brave the Titan foe." 

He said : the gods, the givers of all good, 
Heard with acclaim : nor ever till that hour 
So burn'd each breast with ardour to destroy. 
All on that day stirr'd up the mighty strife, 



THE THEOGONY. 169 

Female and male : Titanic gods, and sons 

And daughters of old Saturn ; and that band 

Of giant brethren, whom, from forth th' abyss 

Of darkness under earth, deliverer Jove 

Sent up to light : grim forms and strong, with force 

Gigantic : arms of hundred-handed gripe 

Burst from their shoulders : fifty heads up-sprang, 

Cresting their muscular limbs. They thus opposed 

In dreadful conflict 'gainst the Titans stood, 

In all their sinewy hands w T ielding aloft 

Precipitous rocks. On th' other side, alert 

The Titan phalanx closed : then hands of strength 

Join'd prowess, and show'd forth the works of war. 

Th' immeasurable sea tremendous dash'd 

With roaring ; earth re-echoed ; the broad heaven 

Groan'd shattering : vast Olympus reel'd throughout 

Down to its rooted base beneath the rush 

Of those immortals : the dark chasm of hell 



Wielding aloft 



Precipitous rocks. ] This, perhaps* 

suggested to Milton the arming the angels with mountains : 

They pluck'd the seated hills with all their load; 
Rocks, waters, woods ; and by the shaggy tops 
Uplifting, bore them in their hands. Par. Lost. yi. 






170 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Was shaken with the trembling, with the tramp 
Of hollow footsteps and strong battle-strokes, 
And measureless uproar of wild pursuit. 
So they against each other through the air 
Hurl'd intermix'd their weapons, scattering groans 
Where'er they fell. The voice of armies rose 
With rallying shout through the starr'd firmament, 
And with a mighty war-cry both the hosts 
Encountering closed. Nor longer then did Jove 
Curb down his force ; but sudden in his soul 
There grew dilated strength, and it was fill'd 
With his omnipotence : his whole of might 
Broke from him, and the godhead rush'd abroad. 



■The dark chasm of hell 



Was shaken. ] This is ex- 

panded by Milton with uncommon sublimity : 

Hell heard th' insufferable noise : hell saw 

Heaven ruining from heaven, and would have fled 

Affrighted : but strict Fate had cast too deep 

Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound. Book vi. 

His whole of might 

Broke from him ] Milton attains 

to a higher conception of omnipotence in the passage : 

Yet half in strength he put not forth, but check'd 
His thunder in mid-volley : for he meant 
Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven. 
There is, however, nothing in Milton which equals in sublimity 



THE THEOGONY. 171 

The vaulted sky, the mount Olympus, flash'd 
With his continual presence ; for he pass'd 
Incessant forth, and lighten'd where he trod. 
Thrown from his nervous grasp the lightnings flew 
Reiterated swift ; the whirling flash 
Cast sacred splendour, and the thunderbolt 
Fell. Then on every side the foodful earth 
Roar'd in the burning flame, and far and near 
The trackless depth of forests crash'd with fire. 
Yea — the broad earth burn'd red, the floods of Nile 
Glow'd, and the desert waters of the sea. 
Round and around the Titans' earthy forms 
Jloll'd the hot vapour, and on fiery surge 
Stream'd upward, swathing in one boundless blaze 
The purer air of heaven. Keen rush'd the light 
In quivering splendour from the writhen flash : 
Strong though they were, intolerable smote 
Their orbs of sight, and with bedimming glare 

the sudden expansion of power in the soul of the deity : zAaf 
/otfv (t*6»eo; ttXhvto <f>fEve?. The plan of the battle of angels is evi- 
dently built on that of the battle of giants : the Messiah, like 
Hesiod's Jove, coming forth to decide the contest ; and sending 
before him thunderbolts and plagues. Milton's magnificent 
imagery of the chariot is borrowed from the vision of the pro- 
phet Ezekiel. 



172 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Scorch'd up their blasted vision. Through the void 

Of Erebus, the preternatural flame 

Spread, mingling fire with darkness. But to see 

With human eye and hear with ear of man 

Had been, as on a time the heaven and earth 

Met hurtling in mid-air : as nether earth 

Crash'd from the centre, and the wreck of heaven 



■Through the void 



Of Erebus. ] x«c? is here only 

a gulf or void. Le Clerc quotes Aristophanes to show that it 
is the vacuity of air : but the conflagration of air has already 
been described. Graevius is undoubtedly right in interpreting it 
the subterraneous abyss, or Erebus : in which sense it is after- 
wards used by Hesiod ; when the Titans are said to dwell " be- 
yond the obscure chaos," or chasm. Virgil uses chaos in this 
acceptation, iEneid. vi. 205 : 

Ye silent shades ! 
Oh Chaos hoar ! and Phlegethon profound ! Pitt. 
So also Ovid, Metamorph. x. Orpheus to Pluto and Proser- 
pine : 

I call you by those sights so full of fear : 
This chaos vast; these silent kingdoms drear ! 

■ The heaven and earth 

Met hurtling in mid-air. ] Milton, Para- 
dise Lost, book ii : 

Nor was his ear less pealed 

With noises loud and ruinous 

than if this frame 

Of heaven were falling, and these elements 
In mutiny had from their axle torn 
The steadfast earth. 



THE THEOGONY. 173 

Fell ruining from high. Not less, when gods 

Grappled with gods, the shout and clang of arms 

Commingled, and the tumult roar'd from heaven. 

Shrill rush'd the hollow winds, and roused throughout 

A shaking and a gathering dark of dust ; 

Crushing the thunders from the clouds of air, 

Hot thunderbolts and flames, the fiery darts 

Of Jove : and in the midst of either host 

They bore upon their blast the cry confused 

Of battle, and the shouting. For the din 

Tumultuous of that sight- appalling strife 

Rose without bound. Stern strength of hardy proof 

Wreak'd there its deeds, till weary sank the fight. 

But first, array'd in battle, front to front, 

Full long they stood, and bore the brunt of war. 

Amid the foremost, towering in the van, 

The war-unsated Gyges, Briareus, 

And Cottus, bitterest conflict waged : for they 

The war-unsated Gyges.] Hesiod has confounded the history 
by supposing the Giants and Titans to have been different per- 
sons. He accordingly makes them oppose each other : and even 
Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, whom all other writers mention 
as Titans, are by him introduced in opposition, and described as 
of another family. His description is however much to the pur- 
pose, and the first contest and dispersion are plainly alluded to. 

Bayajjt. 



174* REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Successive thrice a hundred rocks in air 

HurPd from their sinewy grasp : with missile storm 

The Titan host o'er shadowing, them they drove, 

Vain-glorious as they were, with hands of strength 

O'ercoming them, beneath th' expanse of earth 

And bound with galling chains : so far beneath 

This earth, as earth is distant from the sky : 

So deep the space to darksome Tartarus. 

A brazen anvil rushing from the sky 

Through thrice three days would toss in airy whirl, 

Nor touch this earth, till the tenth sun arose : 

Or down earth's chasm precipitate revolve, 

Nor till the tenth sun rose attain the verge 

Of Tartarus. A fence of massive brass 

The Titan host overshadowing .] Milton, Par. Lost, b. vi. : 

Themselves invaded next and on their heads 

Main promontories flung, which in the air 

Came shadowing, and oppressed whole legions arm'd. 

■ ■■ ■ So far beneath 

This earth. ] Virgil, ZEn. vi. 577 : 

The gaping gulf low to the centre lies, 

And twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies : 

The rivals of the gods, the Titan race, 

Here, singed with lightning, roll within th' unfathom'd space. 

Dryden. 
_ _____ The verge 

Of Tartarus. — — — ] The ancients had 

a notion that the earth was a widely extended plain, which ter- 



THE THEOGONY. 175 

Is forged around : around the pass is rolTd 
A night of triple darkness ; and above 
Impend the roots of earth and barren sea. 
There the Titanic gods in murkiest gloom 
Lie hidden : such the cloud-assembler's will : 
There in a place of darkness, where vast earth 
Has end : from thence no egress open lies : 
Neptune's huge hand has closed with brazen gates 
The mouth : a wall environs every side. 
There Gyges, Cottus, high-souled Briareus, 
Dwell vigilant : the faithful sentinels 
Of iEgis-bearer Jove. Successive there 

minated abruptly in a vast clift of immeasurable descent. At 
the bottom was a chaotic pool, which so far sunk beneath the 
confines of the world, that, to express the depth and distance, 
they imagined an anvil of iron, tossed from the top, could not 
reach it in ten days. This mighty pool was the great Atlantic 
ocean : and these extreme parts of the earth were Mauritania 
and Iberia : for in each of these countries the Titans resided. 

Bryant. 

This explains the introduction of Atlas before the gates of Tar- 
tarus : Guietus is therefore in error when, not being able to ac- 
count for this situation of Atlas, he marks the passage as sup- 
posititious. 

Milton's classical reading appears in his admeasurement of the 
distance which the rebel angels passed in their fall from heaven : 

Nine days they fell: the tenth the yawning gulf 
Received them. 






176 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The dusky Earth, and darksome Tartarus, 
The sterile Ocean, and the starry Heaven, 
Arise and end, their source and boundary. 
A drear and ghastly wilderness, abhorr'd 
E'en by the gods ; a vast vacuity : 
Might none the space of one slow-circling year 
Touch the firm soil, that portal enter'd once, 
But him the whirls of vexing hurricanes 
Toss to and fro. E'en by immortals loathed 

Arise and end.] Seneca, Hercules Frantic : 

Rank with corruption's moss the sterile vast 

Of that abyss : th' unsightly earth is numb'd 
In its eternal barren hoariness : 
The dismal end of things : 
The limits of the world : 
Air moveless hangs with clinging weight above : 
And black night brooding sits 
Upon the lifeless universe. 
A drear and ghastly wilderness.] Homer, II. xx. : 

A dismal wilderness 
Hoary with desolation : which the gods 
Behold, and shuddering turn their eyes away. 

But him the whirls of vexing hurricanes 

Toss to and fro. ] Dante, Inferno, 

canto quinto : 

I venn' in luogo d'ogni luce muto : 

Che mughia, come fa mar per tempesta, 

Se da contrarii venti se combattuto : 



THE THEOGONY. 177 

This prodigy of horror. There too stand 
The mansions drear of gloomy Night, o'erspread 
With blackening vapours : arid before the doors 
Atlas upholding heaven his forehead rears, 
And indefatigable hands. There Night 
And Day, near passing, mutual greeting still 
Exchange, alternate as they glide athwart 
The brazen threshold vast. This enters, that 
Forth issues ; nor the two can one abode 

La bufera infernale, che mai non resta, 

Mena gli spiriti con la sua rapina, 
Voltando et percuotendo gli molesta. 
They reach a spot, void of all ray of light, 
Which howls as seas in storms, where winds opposing fight : 
The hellish whirlwind, never resting, hurls 
The hovering spirits snatch'd upon its whirls : 
And vexing smites, and eddying turns them round. 
Milton seems to have conceived from this passage of Hesiod 
his idea of Satan falling down the chaotic void, book ii. : 
A vast vacuity : all unawares, 
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops 
Ten thousand fathoms deep : and to this hour 
Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, 
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud 
Instinct with fire and nitre hurried him 
As many miles aloft. 

Alternate as they glide athzcart 

The brazen threshold. ] Milton, Par. Lost, vi. 4 : 

There is a cave 
Within the mount of God, fast by his throne, ' 
N 



178 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

At once constrain. This passes forth and roams 
The round of earth ; that in the mansion waits, 
Till the due season of her travel come. 
Lo ! from the one the far-discerning light 
Beams upon earthly dwellers ; but a cloud 
Of pitchy blackness veils the other round : 
Pernicious Night : aye-leading in her hand 
Sleep, Death's half-brother : sons of gloomy Night 
There hold they habitation, Death and Sleep ; 
Dread deities : nor them the shining Sun 
E'er with his beam contemplates, when he climbs 
The cope of heaven, or when from heaven descends. 
Of these the one glides gentle o'er the space 

Where light and darkness in perpetual round 

Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through heaven 

Grateful vicissitude, like day and night : 

Light issues forth, and at the other door 

Obsequious darkness enters, till her hour 

To veil the heaven. 

Sleep, Death's half brother.'] Virg. iEn. vi. 278 : 

Here Toils and Death, and Death's half-brother Sleep, 
Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep. — Dryden. 

Nor them the shining Sun 

E'er with his beam contemplates. ^ — ] Odyssey, xi. 14 : 

With clouds and darkness veil'd : on whom the Sun 
Deigns not to look with his beam-darting eye : 
Or when he climbs the starry arch, or when 
Earthward he slopes again his westering wheels. Cowper. 



THE THEOGONY. 179 

Of earth and broad expanse of ocean waves, 
Placid to man. The other has a heart 
Of iron ; yea, the heart within his breast 
Is brass, unpitying : whom of men he grasps 
Stern he retains : e'en to immortal gods 
A foe. The hollow- sounding palaces 
Of Pluto strong the subterranean god, 
And stern Proserpina, there full in front 
Ascend : a grisly dog, implacable, 

To immortal gods 



A foe. ■ ] Probably from his 

destroying the human favourites of the gods, and the sons of the 
goddesses who have descended to mortal amours : as in the in- 
stances of Hyacinthus, the favourite of Apollo ; and Memnon, 
the son of Aurora ; whose death and burial are described with 
such romantic fancy in Quintus Calaber, Post-Homerics, or Sup- 
plemental Iliad. 

And stern Proserpina.] Many of the temples of Ceres were de- 
dicated to the deity under the name of Persephone or Proserpine, 
who was supposed her daughter ; but they were in reality the 
same personage. Persephone was styled Cora ; which the Greeks 
misinterpreted the virgin or damsel. This was the same as 
Cura, a feminine title of the Sun ; by which Ceres also was 
called at Cnidos. However mild and gentle Proserpine may 
have been represented in her virgin state by the poets, yet her 
tribunal seems in many places to have been very formidable. In 
consequence of this we find her, with Minos and Rhadamanthus, 
condemned to the shades below as an infernal inquisitor. Non- 
nus says, " Proserpine armed the Furies : " the notion of which 
Furies arose from the cruelties practised in the Prutaneia, or 
N2 



180 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Holds watch before the gates : a stratagem 
Is his, malicious : them who enter there, 
With tail and bended ears he fawning soothes : 
But suffers not that they with backward step 
Repass : whoe'er would issue from the gates 
Of Pluto strong and stern Proserpina, 
For them with marking eye he lurks ; on them 
Springs from his couch, and pitiless devours. 
There, odious to immortals, dreadful Styx 
Inhabits : refluent Ocean's eldest-born : 
She from the gods apart for ever dwells 
In far-re-echoing mansions, with arch'd roofs 
Of loftiest rock o'erhung : and all around 

fire-temples. They were originally only priests of fire ; but were 
at last ranked among the hellish tormentors. Herodotus speaks 
of a Prutaneion in Achaia Pthiotic, of which he gives a fearful 
account. No person, he says, ever entered the precincts, that 
returned : whatever person strayed that way was immediately 
seized upon by the priests and sacrificed. Bryant. 

With arch'd roofs 

Of loftiest rock o'erhung. ] Not far from the 

ruins (of Nonacrum, a town of Arcadia,) is a lofty cliff: I have 
seen none that ascended to such a height. A stream distils from 
the declivity. This water is denominated Styx by the Greeks. 
It is deadly to man and to all animals whatever. Pausanias, 
Arcadics, b. viii. 

Le Clerc supposes an opinion to have existed, that a person 
wrongfully accused might securely drink the water of Styx : and 



THE THEOGONY. 181 

The silver columns lean upon the skies. 

Swift-footed Iris, nymph of Thaumas born, 
Takes with no frequent embassy her way 
O'er the broad main's expanse, when haply strife 
Be risen, and midst the gods dissension sown : 
And if there be among th' Olympian race 
Who falsehood utters, Jove sends Iris down 
To bring the great oath in a golden ewer : 
The far-famed water, from steep, sky- cap t rock 
Distilling in cold stream. Beneath wide Earth 
Abundant from the sacred river-head, 

conceives Hesiod to mean that the gods drank of the water at 
the same time that they made a libation, and if they took a false 
oath, were convicted by the lethargic properties of this noxious 
stream. 

Jove sends Iris down.~\ To this covenant (with Noah) Hesiod 
alludes : he calls it the great oath. He says that this oath was 
Iris, or the bow in the heavens ; to which the deity appealed 
when any of the inferior divinities were guilty of an untruth. On 
such an occasion the great oath of the gods was appointed to 
fetch water from the extremities of the ocean, with which those 
were tried who had falsified their word. Bryant. 

The words will certainly admit of this construction ; but the 
context directs that the great oath be connected with the Stygian 
water. The employment of Iris on the mission is still a remark- 
able coincidence with the diluvian covenant. 

The sacred river-head.] That is, the ocean ; which probably 
received this title from the Nile, a river highly venerated, being 
of old called the Oceanus. Styx is said to be a horn, or branch 



182 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Through shades of blackest night, the Stygian horn 
Of ocean flows : a tenth of all the streams 
To the dread oath allotted. In nine streams 
Circling the round of earth and the broad seas, 
With silver whirlpools twined in many a maze, 
It falls into the deep : one stream alone 
Flows from the rock ; a mighty bane to gods. 
Who of immortals, that inhabit still 
Olympus top'd with snow, libation pours 
And is forsworn, he one whole year entire 

of the ocean, from the ancient idea that all rivers sprang from 
it: Homer II. 21 : 

Therefore not kingly Acheloius, 

Nor yet the strength of ocean's vast profound : 

Although from him all rivers and all seas, 

All fountains and all wells proceed, can boast 

Comparison with Jove. Cowper. 

The rivers of Earth and Orcus were believed to communicate ; 
thus Virgil, iEn. vi. 658, of the Elysian fields : 

In fragrant laurel groves, where Po's vast flood 
From upper earth rolls copious through the wood. 

, Libation pours 

And is forsworn. ■ ] It was custom- 
ary to pour a libation, while taking a solemn oath. Thus in the 
third Iliad : 

Then pouring from the beaker to the cups 

They fill'd them. 

All-glorious Jove, and ye, the powers of heaven ! 



THE THEOGONY. 183 

Lies reft of breath : nor yet approaches once 

The nectar 'd and ambrosial sweet repast : 

But still reclines on the spread festive couch 

Mute, breathless ; and a mortal lethargy 

Overwhelms him : but, his malady absolved 

With the great round of the revolving year, 

More ills on ills afflictive seize : nine years 

From ever-living deities remote 

His lot is cast: in council nor in feast 

Once joins he, till nine years entire are full : 

The tenth again he mingles with the blest 

Societies, who fill th' Olympian courts. 

So great an oath the deities of heaven 

Decreed the water of eternal Styx, 

The ancient stream ; that sweeps with wandering waves 

A rugged region : where of dusky Earth, 

And darksome Tartarus, and Ocean waste, 

And starry Heaven, the source and boundary 

Successive rise and end : a dreary wild 

And ghastly : e'en by deities abhorr'd. 

There gates resplendent rise ; the threshold brass ; 

Whoso shall violate this contract first, 

So be their blood, their children's and their own, 

Pour'd out, as this libation on the ground. Cowper. 



184 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Immoveable ; on deep foundations fix'd ; 
Self-framed. Before them the Titanic gods 
Abide, without th' assembly of the Blest, 
Beyond the gulf of darkness. There beneath 
The ocean- roots, th' auxiliaries renown'd 
Of Jove who rolls the hollow-pealing thunder, 
Cottus and Gyges in near mansions dwell : 
But He that shakes the shores with dashing surge 
Hailing him son, gave Briareus as bride 
Cymopolia ; prize of brave desert. 

But now when Jupiter from all the heaven 
Had cast the Titans forth, huge Earth embraced 
By Tartarus, through balmy Venus' aid, 
Her youngest-born Typhceus bore ; whose hands 

Her youngest-born Typhceus.'] Taph, which at times was 
rendered Tuph, Toph, and Taphos, was a name current among 
the Amonians, by which they called their high places. Lower 
iEgypt being a flat, and annually overflowed, the natives were 
forced to raise the soil on which they built their principal edifices, 
in order to secure them from the inundation : and many of their 
sacred towers were erected on conical mounds of earth. There 
were often hills of the same form constructed for religious pur- 
poses, upon which there was no building. These were high 
altars ; on which they used sometimes to offer human sacrifices. 
Tophet, where the Israelites made their children pass through 
fire to Moloch, was a mount of this form. Those cities in 
iEgypt which had a high place of this sort, and rites in conse- 



THE THEOGONY. 185 

Of strength are fitted to stupendous deeds : 
And indefatigable are the feet 

quence of it, were styled Typhonian. Many writers say that 
these rites were performed to Typhon at the tomb of Osiris. 
Hence he was in later times supposed to have been a person ; 
one of immense size; and he was also esteemed a god. But this 
arose from the common mistake by which places were substituted 
for the deities there worshipped. Typhon was the Tuph-on, or 
altar ; and the offerings were made to the Sun, styled On ; the 
same as Osiris and Busiris. What they called his tombs were 
mounds of earth raised very high : some of these had also lofty 
towers adorned with pinnacles and battlements. They had also 
carved on them various symbols ; and particularly serpentine 
hieroglyphics ; in memorial of the god to whom they were sacred. 
In their upper story was a perpetual fire, that was plainly seen in 
the night. The gigantic stature of Typhon was borrowed from this 
object: and his character was formed from the hieroglyphical 
representations in the temples styled Typhonian. This may be 
inferred from the allegorical description of Typhoeus given by 
Hesiod. Typhon and Typhoeus were the same personage ; and 
the poet represents him of a mixed form; being partly a man, 
and partly a monstrous dragon, whose head consisted of an as- 
semblage of smaller serpents : and as there was a perpetual fire 
kept up in the upper story, he describes it as shining through the 
apertures of the building. The tower of Babel was undoubtedly 
a Tuph-on, or altar of the Sun ; though generally represented as 
a temple. Hesiod certainly alludes to some ancient history con- 
cerning the demolition of Babel, when he describes Typhon or 
Typhoeus as overthrown by Jove. He represents him as the 
youngest son of Earth ; as a deity of great strength and immense 
stature ; and adds what is very remarkable, that had it not been 



186 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Of the strong god : and from his shoulders rise 
A hundred snaky heads of dragon growth, 
Horrible, quivering with their blackening tongues : 
In each amazing head, from eyes that roll'd 
Within their sockets, fire shone sparkling : fire 
Blazed from each head, the whilst he roll'd his glance 
Glaring around him. In those fearful heads 
Were voices of all sound, miraculous : 
Now utter'd they distinguishable tones 
Meet for the ear of gods : now the deep cry 
Of a wild-bellowing bull untamed in strength : 
And now the roaring of a lion, fierce 
In spirit : and anon the yell of whelps 
Strange to the ear : and now the monster hiss'd, 
That the high mountains echoed back the sound. 
Then had a dread event that fatal day 



for the interposition of the chief god, this diemon would have 
obtained a universal empire. Bryant. 

Equally remarkable is the diversity of voices, described as 
issuing from the different heads of the giant. In the Mexican 
mythology a giant builds an artificial hill, in the form of a py- 
ramid, as a memorial of the mountain, in whose caverns he, 
with six others, had taken shelter- from a deluge. This monu- 
ment was to reach the clouds ; but the gods destroyed it with 
fire. See Humboldt's American Researches. 



THE THEOGONY. 187 

Inevitable fall'n, and he had ruled 

O'er mortals and immortals ; but the Sire 

Of gods and men the peril instant knew 

Intuitive ; and vehement and strong 

He thunder'd : instantaneous all around 

Earth reel'd with horrible crash : the firmament 

Of high heaven roar'd : the streams of Nile, the sea, 

And uttermost caverns. While the king in wrath 

Uprose, beneath his everlasting feet 

The great Olympus trembled, and earth groan'd. 

From either god a burning radiance caught 

The darkly azured ocean : from the flash 

Of lightnings, and that monster's darted flame, 

Hot thunderbolts, and blasts of fiery winds. 

Earth, air, sea, glow'd : the billows, heaved on high, 



■Beneath his everlasting feet 



The great Olympus trembled. — ] Mr. Todd, in his 

notes on Milton, quotes the passage describing the rushing of the 
Messiah's chariot, as superior in grandeur to this of Hesiod : 

Under his burning wheels 
The steadfast empyreum shook throughout, 
All but the throne itself of God. 

The majesty of Milton's exception certainly exceeds Hesiod in 
loftiness of thought : but the mere rising of Jupiter causing the 
mountain to rock beneath his eternal feet, is more sublime than 
the shaking of the firmament from the rolling of wheels. 



188 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Foam'd round the shores, and dash'd on every side 

Beneath the rush of gods. Concussion wild 

And unappeasable uprose : aghast 

The gloomy monarch of th' infernal dead 

Shudder'd : the sub-tartarean Titans heard 

E'en where they stood, with Saturn in the midst : 

They heard appall'd the unextinguish'd rage 

Of tumult, and the din of dreadful war. 

But now when Jove had gather'd all his strength, 

And grasp'd his weapons, bolts, and bickering flames, 

He from the mount Olympus' topmost ridge 

Leap'd at a bound, and smote him : hiss'd at once 

The horrible monster's heads enormous, scorch'd 

In one conflagrant blaze. When thus the god 

Had quell'd him, thunder-smitten, mangled, prone, 

He fell : earth groan'd and shook beneath his weight. 

Flame from the lightning-stricken deity 

Flash'd, midst the mountain-hollows, rugged, dark, 

Where he fell smitten. Broad earth glow'd intense 

From that unbounded vapour, and dissolv'd : 

As fusile tin by art of youths above 

The wide-brimm'd vase up-bubbling foams with heat; 

The lightning-stricken deity.] toio avaxros. King is merely a 
title of deity, and was applied before to Prometheus. 



THE THEOGONY. 189 

Or iron, hardest of the mine, subdued 
By burning flame amidst the woody dales 
Melts in the sacred caves beneath the hands 
Of Vulcan, so earth melted in the glare 
Of blazing fire. He down wide Hell's abyss 
His victim hurl'd in bitterness of soul. 

Lo ! from Typhceus is the strength of winds 
Moist-blowing: save the South, North, East, and West: 
These born from gods, a blessing great to man : 
Those, unavailing gusts, o'er the waste sea 
Breathe barren : with sore peril fraught to man : 
In whirlpool rage fall black upon the deep : 
Now here, now there, they rush with stormy gale, 
Scatter the rolling barks, and whelm in death 
The mariner : an evil succourless 
To men, who midst the ocean-ways their blast 

The woody dales.] Forges were erected in woody valleys, oa 
account of the abundance of fuel. Guietus. 

Lo I from Typhceus is the strength of winds.] By these are 
meant the intermediary winds : with some of which it is evident 
that Hesiod was acquainted, although perhaps they were not yet 
distinguished by names. The ancient Greeks at first used only 
the four cardinal winds : but afterwards admitted four collaterals. 
Vitruvius enumerates twenty collateral winds in the Roman 
practice. 

These born from gods.] That is, from superior gods : as Aurora 
and Astraeus. 

3 



190 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Encounter. They again o'er all th' expanse 
Of flowery earth the pleasant works of man 
Despoil, and fill the blacken'd air with cloud 
Of eddying dust and hollow rustlings drear. 

Now had the blessed Powers of Heaven fulfill'd 
Their toils, for meed of glory 'gainst the gods 
Titanic striving in their strength : and now, 
Earth-counsell'd, they exhort Olympian Jove, 
Of wide beholding eyes, to regal sway 
And empire o'er immortals : he to them 
Due honours portion'd with an equal hand. 

First as a bride the Monarch of the gods 
Led Metis : her o'er deities and men 

Led Metis.] One of the most ancient deities of the Amonians 
was named Meed or Meet ; by which was signified divine wis- 
dom. It was rendered by the Grecians Metis. It was repre- 
sented under the symbol of a beautiful female countenance sur- 
rounded with serpents. Bryant. 

The figure of wedding Wisdom occurs in " The Wisdom of 
Solomon/' ch. viii. v. 2. " I loved her, and sought her out from 
my youth : I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover 
of her beauty." 

In the Proverbs, Solomon describes Wisdom as the companion 
of Deity, in the language of exquisite poetry : 

" I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever 
the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought forth : 
when there were no fountains abounding with water. When he 
prepared the heavens I was there ': when he set a compass upoa 



THE THEOGONY. 191 

Vers'd in all knowledge. But when now the time 
Was full, that she should bear the blue-eyed maid 
Minerva, he with treacheries of smooth speech 
Beguiled her thought, and hid his spouse away 
In his own breast : so Earth and starry Heaven 
Had counselled : him they both advising warn'd 
Lest, in the place of Jove, another seize 
The kingly honour o'er immortal gods. 
For so the Fates had destined, that from her 
An offspring should be born, of wisest strain. 
First the Tritonian virgin azure-eyed : 

the face of the depths : when he established the clouds above : 
when he strengthened the fountains of the deep : when he gave 
to the sea his decree : when he appointed the foundations of the 
earth : then I was by him, as one brought up with him : and I 
was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." Chap. viii. 

— The blue-eyed maid 

Minerva. ] An-ath signified 

the fountain of light : and was abreviated Nath and Neith by 
the ^Egyptians. They worshipped under this title a divine ema- 
nation, supposed to be the goddess of Wisdom. The Athenians, 
who came from Sais, in iEgypt, were denominated from this 
deity, whom they expressed Athana, or in the Ionian manner, 
Athene. Bryant. 

Cudworth mentions Hammon and Neith as titles for one and 
the same deity ; and quotes Plutarch as authority that Isis and 
Neith were also the same among the ^Egyptians : and therefore 
the temple of Neith or Athene (Minerva) at Sais, was by him 
called the temple of Isis. Intellectual System, b. i. ch. 4. 



192 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Of equal might and prudence with her sire : 
And then a son, king over gods and men, 
Had she brought forth, invincible of soul, 
But Jove in his own breast before that hour 
Deposited the goddess : evermore 
So warning him of evil and of good. 

Next led he shining Themis : and she bare 
Order, and Justice, and the blooming Peace, 
The Hours by name : who perfect all the works 
Of human kind : and Destinies, whom Jove 
All-wise array'd with honour : Lachesis, 
Clotho, and Atropos : who deal to men 
The dole of good or ill. To him anon 
Old Ocean's daughter, amiablest of mien, 
Eurynome, brought the three Graces forth 
Beauteous of cheek: Euphrosyne, Aglaia, 
And Thalia blithe : their eye-lids, as they gaze, 
Drop love, unnerving : and beneath the shade 

Brought the three Graces forth, .] As Charis was a tower sacred 
to fire, some of the poets supposed a nymph of that name, who 
was beloved by Vulcan. Homer speaks of her as his wife. The 
Graces were said to be related to the Sun, who was, in reality, 
the same as Vulcan. The Sun, among the people of the East, 
was called Hares, and with a strong guttural, Chares : and his 
temple was styled Tor-chares : this the Greeks expressed Tricha- 
ris : and from thence formed a notion of three Graces. Bryant. 



THE THEOGONY. 193 

Of their arch'd brows they steal the sidelong glance 
Of sweetness. To the couch anon he came 
Of many-nurturing Ceres : Proserpine 
The snowy-arm'd she bare : her gloomy Dis 
Snatch'd from her mother, and all-prudent Jove 
Consign'd the prize. Next loved he the fair-hair'd 
Mnemosyne : from her the Muses nine 
Are born : their brows with golden fillets wreath'd ; 
Whom feasts delight, and rapture sweet of song. 

In mingled joy with aegis- wielding Jove 
Latona bore the arrow-shooting Dian, 
And Phcebus, loveliest of the heavenly tribe. 

He last the blooming Juno led as bride : 
And she, embracing with the king of gods 
And men, bore Mars, and Hebe, and Lucina. 

He from his head disclosed himself to birth 
The blue-eyed maid, Tritonian Pallas ; fierce, 

The arrow-shooting Dian.] Artemis Diana and Venus 
Dione were in reality the same deity, and had the same depart- 
ments. This sylvan goddess was distinguished by a crescent, as 
well as Juno Samia ; and was an emblem of the Arkite history, 
and in consequence of it was supposed to preside over waters. 

Bryant. 
Hebe.] Hebe is a mere personification of youth. The poets 
made her the cup-bearer of the gods, as an emblem of their im 
mortality. 

O 



19* REMAINS OF IIKSIOD. 

Rousing the war-field's tumult ; unsubdued ; 
Leader of armies ; awful : whom delight 
The shout of battle and the shock of war. 

Without th' embrace of love did Juno bear 
Illustrious Vulcan, o'er celestials graced 
"With arts : and strove contending with her spouse 
Emulous. From the god of sounding waves, 
Shaker of earth, and Amphitrite, sprang 
Sea-potent Triton huge : beneath the deep 

Pallas ; fierce. 

Rousing the war-field's tumult. ] In her martial 

character Minerva is intended to personify the wisdom and policy 
of war as opposed to brute force and animal courage ; which are 
represented by Mars. 

Illustrious Vulcan, .] The author of the New Analysis has ex- 
ploded the notion that Vulcan was the same with Tubal-cain : 
who is mentioned in Genesis iv. 22, as " an instructor of every 
artificer in brass and iron : " for nothing of this craft was of old 
attached to Hephaistus or Vulcan : who was the god of fire ; 
that is, the Sun. Later mycologists degraded him to a black- 
smith ; and placed him over the Cyclops, or Cyclopians, the 
Sicilian worshippers of fire. The emblem? carved in the temples 
led to the idea of Vulcan and the Cyclops forging thunderbolts 
and weapons for the celestial armoury. 

Sea-potent Triton.] The Hetrurians erected on their shores 
towers and beacons for the sake of their navigation,, which they 
called Tor-ain : whence they had a still farther denomination of 
Tor-aini (Tyrrheni). Another name for buildings of this nature 
was Tint or Turit : which signified a tower or turret. The name 
of Triton is a contraction of Tirit-on : and signifies the tower of 



THE THE0G0NY. 195 

He dwells in golden edifice, a god 
Of awful might. Now Venus gave to Mars, 
Breaker of shields, a dreadful offspring : Fear, 
And Consternation : they confound, in rout 
Of horrid war, the phalanx dense of men, 
With city-spoiler Mars. Harmonia last 

the Sun : but a deity was framed from it, who was supposed to 
have had the appearance of a man upwards, but downwards to 
have been like a fish. The Hetrurians are thought to have been 
the inventors of trumpets ; and in their towers on the sea-coast 
there were people appointed to be continually on the watch, both 
by day and by night, and to give a proper signal if any thing 
happened extraordinary. This was done by a blast from the 
trumpet. In early times, however, these brazen instruments 
were but little known ; and people were obliged to use what were 
near at hand ; the conchs of the sea : by sounding these they 
gave signals from the tops of the towers when any ship ap- 
peared : and this is the implement with which Triton is more 
commonly furnished. So Amphi-tirit is merely an oracular tower, 
which by the poets has been changed into Amphitrite, and made 
the wife of Neptune. Bryant. 

Venus gave to Mars, 

Breaker of shields, a dreadful offspring.] The making the god- 
dess of Love, Concord, and Fertility, the spouse of Mars, and 
the mother of Fear and Terror, is obviously of later invention 
and of Grecian origin : and was, no doubt, suggested by the 
Rape of Helen, which was supposed to be instigated by Venus, 
and which kindled the war of Troy. See that elegant and classi- 
cal poem of the sixth century: " The Rape of Helen" of Colu- 
thus. 

o2 



196 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

She bare, whom generous Cadmus clasp'd as bride. 
Daughter of Atlas, Maia bore to Jove 

Harmonia last 



She bare, zvhom generous Cadmus clasp'd as bride.] I am per- 
suaded that no such person as Cadmus ever existed. If we con- 
sider the whole history of this celebrated hero, we shall find that 
it was impossible for any one person to have effected what he is 
supposed to have performed. They were not the achievements of 
one person nor of one age : the travels of Cadmus, like the ex- 
peditions of Perseus, Sesostris, and Osiris, relate to colonies, 
which at different times went abroad and were distinguished by 
this title. As colonies of the same denomination went to parts of 
the world widely distant, their ideal chieftain, whether Cadmus, 
or Bacchus, or Hercules, was supposed to have traversed the 
same ground. 

Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, who has been esteemed a 
mere woman, seems to have been an emblem of nature, and the 
fostering nurse of all things. In some of the Orphic verses she 
is represented not only as a deity, but as the light of the world. 
She was supposed to have been a personage from whom all 
knowledge was derived. On this account the books of science 
were styled the books of Harmonia : as well as the books of 
Hermes. These were four in number ; of which Nonnus gives 
a curious account, and says that they contained matter of won- 
derful antiquity. The first of them is said to be coeval with the 
world. Hence we find that Hermon or Harmonia was a deity to 
whom the first writing is ascribed. The same is said of Hermes. 
The invention is also attributed to Thoth. Cadmus is said not 
only to have brought letters into Greece, but to have been the 
inventor of them. Whence we may fairly conclude, that under 
the characters of Hermon, Hermes, Thoth, and Cadmus, one 
person is alluded to. 



THE THEOGONY. 197 

The glorious Hermes, herald of the gods ; 
The sacred couch ascending. Semele, 

The story of Cadmus, and of the serpent with which he en- 
gaged upon his arrival in Bceotia, relates to the Ophite worship 
which was there instituted by the Cadmians. So Jascn in Colchis, 
Apollo in Phocis, Hercules at Lerna, engaged with serpents : all 
of which are histories of the same purport, but mistaken by the 
latter Grecians. It is said of Cadmus that, at the close of his 
life, he was, together with his wife Harmonia, changed into a 
serpent of stone. This wonderful metamorphosis is supposed to 
have happened at Encheliae, a town of Illyria. The true history 
is this. These two personages were here enshrined in a temple, 
and worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. Bryant. 

The glorious Hermes, herald of the gods.~\ The ./Egyptians 
acknowledged two personages under the title of Hermes and 
Thoth. The first was the same as Osiris ; the most ancient of 
all the gods, and the head of all. The other was called the 
second Hermes ; and likewise, for excellence, styled Trisme- 
gistus. This person is said to have been a great adept in myste- 
rious knowledge, and an interpreter of the will of the gods. 
He was a great prophet ; and on that account was looked upon 
as a divinity. To him they ascribed the reformation of the 
JEgyptian year : and there were many books, either written by 
him, or concerning him, which were preserved by the ^Egyptians 
in the most sacred recesses of their temples. As he had been 
the cause of great riches to their nation, they styled him the 
dispenser of wealth, and esteemed him the god of gain. We 
are told that the true name of this Hermes was Siphoas. What 
is Siphoas but Aosiph misplaced ? and is not Aosiph the 
^Egyptian name of the patriarch Joseph, as he was called by the 
Hebrews ? Bryant. 

Semele.] The amour of Jupiter with Semele is described with 



198 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Daughter of Cadmus, melting in embrace 
With Jove, gave jocund Bacchus to the light: 
A mortal an immortal : now alike 
Immortal deities. Alcmena bare 
Strong Hercules : dissolving in embrace 
With the cloud-gatherer Jove. The crippled god, 
In arts illustrious, Vulcan, as his bride 
The gay Aglaia led, the youngest Grace. 
Bacchus of golden hair, his blooming spouse 

brilliant luxuriancy of fancy and diction by Nonnus in his Dio- 
nysiacs. 

Bacchus of golden hair.] The history of Dionusus is closely 
connected with that of Bacchus, though they were two distinct 
persons. Dionusos is interpreted by the Latins Bacchus ; but 
very improperly. Bacchus was Chus, the grandson of Noah ; 
as Ammon was Ham. Dionusus was Noah; expressed Noos, 
Nus, Nusus ; the planter of the vine, and the inventor of fer- 
mented liquors : whence he was also denominated Zeuth ; which 
signifies ferment ; rendered Zeus by the Greeks. Dionusus was 
the same as Osiris. According to the Grecian mythology, he is 
represented as having been twice born ; and is said to have had 
two fathers and two mothers. He was also exposed in an ark, 
and wonderfully preserved. The purport of which histories is 
plain. We must, however, for the most part, consider the ac- 
count given of Dionusus as the history of the Dionusians. This 
is two-fold : part relates to their rites and religion, in which 
the great events of the infant world and preservation of mankind 
in general were recorded ; in the other part, which contains the 
expeditions and conquests of this personage, are enumerated 
the various colonies of the people who were denominated from 



THE THEOGONY. 199 

Daughter of Minos, Ariadne clasp'd 
With yellow tresses. Her Saturnian Jove 
Immortal made, and fearless of decay. 

Fair-limb'd Alcmena's valiant son, achieved 

him. They were the same as the Osirians and Herculeans. 
There were many places which claimed his birth : and as many 
where was shown the spot of his interment. The Grecians, 
wherever they met with a grot or cavern sacred to him, took it 
for granted that he was born there : and wherever he had a 
taphos, or high altar, supposed that he was there buried. The 
same is also observable in the history of all the gods. 

There are few characters which at first sight appear more dis- 
tinct than those of Apollo and Bacchus. Yet the department 
which is generally appropriated to Apollo as the Sun, I mean the 
conduct of the year, is by Virgil given to Bacchus, Georg. i. 5 : 

Lights of the world ! ye brightest orbs on high, 

Who lead the sliding year around the sky, 

Bacchus and Ceres ! Warton. 

Hence we find that Bacchus is the Sun or Apollo ; in reality 
they were all three the same ; he was the ruling deity of the 
world. Bryant. 

In this passage of Virgil, Ceres is Luna, or the Moon. 

Alcmenas valiant son.] Hercules was a title given to the 
chief deity of the gentiles : who has been multiplied into almost 
as many personages as there were countries where he was 
worshipped. What has been attributed to this god singly was 
the work of Herculeans, a people who went under this title, 
among the many which they assumed, and who were the same 
as the Osirians, Peresians, and Cuthites. Wherever there were 
Herculeans, a Hercules has been supposed. Hence his charac- 
ter has been variously represented. One while he appears little 



200 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

His agonizing labours, Hebe led 
A bashful bride, the daughter of great Jove 
And Juno golden-sandal'd, on the mount 
Olympus top'd with snow. Thrice blest who thus, 
A mighty task accomplish'd, midst the gods 
Uninjur'd dwells, and free from withering age 
For evermore. Perseis, ocean-nymph 
Illustrious, to th' unwearied Sun produced 
Circe and king iEetes. By the will 
Of Heaven, JEetes, boasting for his sire 
The world-enlightning Sun, Idya led 
Cheek-blooming, nymph of ocean's perfect stream : 
And she, to love by balmy Venus' aid 
Subdued, Medea beauteous-ankled bare. 

better than a sturdy vagrant : at other times he is mentioned as 
a great benefactor ; also as the patron of science ; the god of 
eloquence, with the Muses in his train. He was the same as 
Hermes, Osiris, and Dionusus ; and his rites were introduced 
into various parts by the Cuthites. In the detail of his peregri- 
nations is contained in great measure a history of that people, 
and of their settlements. Each of these the Greeks have de- 
scribed as a warlike expedition, and have taken the glory of it 
to themselves. Bryant. 

Medea.'] The natives of Colchis and Pontus were of the 
Cuthite race : they were much skilled in simples. Their country 
abounded in medicinal herbs, of which they made use both to 
good and bad purposes. In the fable of Medea we may read the 
character of the people : for that princess is represented as very 



THE THEOGONY. 201 

And now farewell, ye heavenly habitants ! 
Ye islands, and ye continents of earth ! 
And thou, oh main ! of briny wave profound ! 
Oh sweet of speech, Olympian Muses ! born 
From aegis-wielding Jove ! sing now the tribe 
Of goddesses ; whoe'er, by mortals clasp'd 
In love, have borne a race resembling gods. 

Ceres, divinest goddess, in soft joy 
Blends with Iasius brave, in the rich tract 
Of Crete, whose fallow'd glebe thrice-till'd abounds ; 
And Plutus bare, all-bountiful, who roams 
Earth, and th' expanded surface of the sea : 
And him that meets him on his way, whose hands 
He grasps, him gifts he with abundant gold, 
And large felicity. Harmonia, born 
Of lovely Venus, gave to Cadmus' love 
Ino and Semele : and fair of cheek 
Agave, and Autonoe, the bride 
Of Aristaeus with the clustering locks ; 
And Polydorus, born in towery Thebes. 

knowing in all the productions of nature, and as gifted with 
supernatural powers. Bryant. 

Plutus.] Plutus is the same with Pluto : who, in his subter- 
ranean character, presided over all the riches of the ground : 
whether metallic or vegetable. 



202 REMAINS OP HESIOD. 

Aurora to Tithonus Memnon bare, 
The brazen-helm'd, the ^Ethiopian king, 
And king Emathion : and to Cephalus 
Bare she a son illustrious, Phaethon, 
Gallantly brave, a mortal like to gods : 
Whom, while a youth, e'en in the tender flower 
Of glorious prime, a boy, and vers'd alone 
In what a boy may know, love's amorous queen 
Snatch'd with swift rape away : in her blest fane 
Appointing him her nightly-serving priest ; 
The heavenly daemon of her sanctuary. 

Jason iEsonides, by heaven's high will, 

Jason.] In the account of the Argo we have, undeniably, the 
history of a sacred ship ; the first which was ever constructed. 
This truth the best writers among the Grecians confess ; though 
the merit of the performance they would fain take to themselves. 
Yet after all their prejudices, they continually betray the truth, 
and show that the history was derived to them from iEgypt. 
Plutarch informs us, that the constellation, which the Greeks 
called the Argo, was a representation of the sacred ship of 
Osiris : and that it was out of reverence placed in the heavens. 
The ship of Osiris was esteemed the first ship constructed ; and 
was no other than the ark. Jason was certainly a title of the 
Arkite god ; the same as Areas, Argus, Inachus, and Prome- 
theus : and the temples supposed to have been built by him in 
regions so remote were temples erected to his honour. It is 
said of this personage that, when a child, he underwent the 
same fate as Osiris, Perseus, aud Dionusus : " he was con- 
cealed, and shut up in an ark, as if he had been dead." Bryant. 



THE THEOGONY. 203 

Bore from iEetes, foster-son of Jove, 

His daughter : those afflictive toils achieved, 

Which Pelias, mighty monarch, bold in wrong, 

Unrighteous, violent of deed, imposed : 

And much-enduring reach'd th' Iolchian coast, 

Wafting in winged bark the jet-eyed maid, 

His blooming spouse. She yielding thus in love 

To Jason, shepherd of his people, bare 

Medeus, whom the son of Philyra, 

Sage Chiron, midst the mountain-solitudes 

Sage Chiron.'] Chiron, so celebrated for his knowledge, was 
a mere personage formed from a tower or temple of that name. 
It stood in Thessaly ; and was inhabited by a set of priests called 
Centauri. They were so denominated from the deity they wor- 
shipped, who was represented under a particular form. They 
styled him Cahen-taur : and he was the same as the Minotaur 
of Crete, and the Tauromen of Sicilia : consequently of an 
emblematical and mixed figure. The people, by whom this 
worship was introduced, were many of them Anakim ; and are 
accordingly represented as of great strength and stature. Such 
persons among the people of the East were styled nephele, 
which the Greeks, in after-times, supposed to relate to Nephele, 
a cloud : and in consequence described the Centaurs as born of a 
cloud. Chiron was a temple : probably at Nephele in Thessalia; 
the most ancient seat of the Nephelim. His name is a compound 
of Chir-on : the tower or temple of the Sun. In places of this 
sort, people used to study the heavenly motions ; and they were 
made use of for seminaries, where young persons were instructed. 



204? REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Train'd up to man : thus were high Jove's designs 
Fulfill'd. Now Psamathe, the goddess famed, 
Who sprang from ancient Nereus of the sea, 
Bare Phocus ; through the lovely Venus' aid 
By iEacus embraced. To Peleus' arms 
Resign'd, the silver-footed Thetis bare 
Achilles lion-hearted : cleaving fierce 
The ranks of men. Wreath'd Cytherea bare 
iEneas : blending in ecstatic love 
With brave Anchises on the verdant top 
Of Ida, wood-embosom'd, many-valed. 

Now Circe, from the Sun Hyperion-born 
Descended, with the much- enduring man 

Hence Achilles was said to have been taught by Chiron ; who is 
reported to have had many disciples. Bryant. 

Circe.'] From the knowledge of the Cuthites in herbs we may 
justly infer a great excellence in physic. ./Egypt the nurse of arts, 
was much celebrated for botany. To the Titanians, or race of 
Chus, was attributed the invention of chemistry : hence it is 
said by Syncellus, that chemistry was the discovery of the 
Giants. Circe and Calypso are, like Medea, represented as 
very experienced in pharmacy and simples. Under these cha- 
racters we have the history of Cuthite priestesses, who presided 
in particular temples near the sea-coast, and whose charms and 
incantations were thought to have a wonderful influence. The 
nymphs who attended them were a lower order in these sacred 
colleges ; and they were instructed by their superiors in their arts 
and mysteries. Bryant. 



THE THEOGONY. 205 

Ulysses blending love, Latinus bare, 

And Agrius, brave and blameless : far they left 

Their native seats in Circe's hallow'd isles, 

And o'er the wide-famed Tyrrhene tribes held sway. 

Calypso, noble midst the goddess race, 
Clasp'd wise Ulysses : and from rapturous love 
Nausithous and Nausinous gave to day. 

Lo ! these were they, who yielding to embrace 
Of mortal men, themselves immortal, gave 
A race resembling gods. Oh now the tribe 
Of gentle women sing ! Olympian maids ! 
Ye Muses, born from aegis-bearer Jove ! 



%\)t g>f)teto of Hercules* 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES, 



€lje 3Lrgitmcnt» 

I. The arrival of Alcmena at Thebes, as the companion of her 
husband's exile. The expedition of Amphitryon against the 
Teloboans. The artifice of Jupiter, who anticipates his return, 
and steals the embraces of Alcmena. The birth of Hercules. 

II. The meeting of Hercules with Cygnus : the description of 
his armour : and particularly of his Shield, diversified with 
sculptured imagery. 

III. The combat : and the burial of Cygnus. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 



\JR as Alcmcna, from Electryon born, 

The guardian of his people, her lov'd home 

And natal soil abandoning, to Thebes 

Came with Amphitryon : with the brave in war. 

She all the gentle race of womankind 

In height surpass'd and beauty : nor with her 

In height surpassed.'] Aristotle observes that persons of small 
stature may be elegantly and justly formed, but cannot be styled 
beautiful, Ethics, iv. 7. Xenophon in his Cyropaedia, ii. 5, de- 
scribes the beautiful Panthea as " of surpassing height and 
vigour." Theocritus mentions a fulness of form as equally cha- 
racteristic of beauty : 

So bloom'd the charming Helen in our eyes 

With full voluptuous limbs and towering size : 

In shape, in height, in stately presence fair, 

Straight as a furrow gliding from the share : 

A cypress of the gardens, spiring high, 

A courser in the cars of Thessaly. Idyl, xviii. 

It is remarkable that Chaucer appears to glance at this compa- 
rison : 

Winsing she was, as is a jollie colt, 

Long as a maste and upright as a bolt. The Miller's Tale. 
p 2 



212 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Might one in prudence vie, of all who sprang 
From mortal fair-ones, blending in embrace 
With mortal men. Both from her tressed head, 
And from the darkening lashes of her eyes, 
She breathed enamouring odour like the breath 
Of balmy Venus : passing fair she was, 
Yet not the less her consort with heart-love 
Revered she ; so had never woman loved. 

From the darkening lashes of her eyes 



She breathed enamouring odour. ] I am satisfied 

that this is to be taken in a literal, not in a metaphysical or 
poetic sense. Nearly all the Greek female epithets had a re- 
ference to some artificial mode of heightening the personal al- 
lurements : as rosy-fingered ; rosy-elbowed : I think xuaveowy, black, 
is an epithet of the same cast : and alludes to the darkening of 
the eye-lid by the rim drawn round it with a needle dipped in 
antimonial oil. " The eye-lashes breathing of Venus," has a 
palpable connexion with this. Athenaeus, xv. describes the se- 
veral unguents for the hair, breast, and arms, which were in use 
among the Greeks, as impregnated with the odour of rose, 
myrtle, or crocus. The oily dye employed by the women to 
blacken their eye-brows and eye-lashes was doubtless perfumed 
in the same manner. Virgil probably had in his mind the per- 
fumed hair of a Roman lady, when he described the tresses of 
Venus breathing ambrosia, iEn. i. 402 : 

She spoke and turn'd : her neck averted shed 
A light that glow'd l celestial rosy red : ' 
The locks that loosen'd from her temples flew 
Breathing heaven's odours, dropp'd ambrosial dew. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 213 

Though he her noble sire by violent strength 

Had slain, amid those herds, the cause of strife, 

Madden'd to sudden rage : his native soil 

He left, and thence to the Cadmean state, 

Shield-bearing tribe, came supplicant : and there 

Dwelt with his modest spouse; yet from the joys 

Of love estranged : for he might not ascend 

The couch of her, the beautiful of feet, 

Till for the slaughter of her brethren brave, 

His arm had wreak'd revenge ; and burn'd with fire 

The guilty cities of those warlike men 

Taphians and Teloboans. This the task 

Assign'd: the gods on high that solemn vow 

Had witness'd : of their anger visitant 

In fear he stood ; and speeded in all haste 

T' achieve the mighty feat, imposed by Heaven. 

Him the Boeotians, gorers of the steed, 

Who coveting the war-shout and the shock 

Those herds, the cause of strife.'] The story commonly runs, 
that the Taphians, and Teloboans, a lawless and piratical people, 
had made an inroad into the territory of Argos, and carried off 
Electryon's herds : that in the pursuit a battle took place, and the 
robbers killed the brothers of Alcmena : and Amphitryon him- 
self accidentally killed Electryon. But it should appear from 
Hesiod that he killed him by design on some provocation or 
dispute. 






214 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Of battle o'er the buckler breathe aloft 
Their open valour ; him the Locrian race 
Close-combating ; and of undaunted soul, 
The Phocians follow'd : towering in the van 
Amphitryon gallant shone : and in his host 
Gloried. But other counsel secret wove 
Within his breast the sire of gods and men : 
That both to gods and to th' inventive race 
Of man a great deliverer might arise 
Sprung from his loins, of plague-repelling fame. 
Deep-framing in his inmost soul deceit, 
He through the nightly darkness took his way 
From high Olympus, glowing with the love 
Of her, the fair-one of the graceful zone. 
Swift to the Typhaonian mount he pass'd : 
Thence drew nigh Phycium's lofty ridge : sublime 
There sitting, the wise counsellor of heaven 
Revolved a work divine. That self-same night 
He sought the couch of her, who stately treads 
With long-paced step ; and melting in her arms 
Took there his fill of love. That self-same night 
The host-arousing chief, the mighty deed 
Perform'd, in glory to his home returned : 
Nor to the vassals and the shepherd hinds 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 215 

His footstep bent, before he climb'd the couch 
Of his Alcmena : such inflaming love 
Seiz'd in the deep recesses of his heart 
The chief of thousands. And as he, that scarce 
Escapes, and yet escapes, from grievous plague 
Or the hard-fettering chain, flies free away 
Joyful, — so struggling through that arduous toil 
With pain accomplish'd, wishful, eager, traced 
The prince his homeward way. The live-long night 
He with the modest partner of his bed 
Embracing lay, and revell'd in delight 
The bounteous bliss of love's all-charming queen. 

Thus by a god and by the first of men 
Alike subdued to love, Alcmena gave 
Twin-brethren birth, within the seven-fold gates 
Of Thebes : yet brethren though they were, unlike 
Their natures : this of weaker strain ; but that 
Far more of man ; valorous and stern and strong. 
Him, Hercules, conceived she from th' embrace 
Of the cloud-darkener : to th' Alcaean chief, 
Shaker of spears, gave Iphiclus : a race 
Distinct : nor wonder : this Of mortal man, 
That of imperial Jove. The same who slew 
The lofty-minded Cygnus, child of Mars. 



216 REMAINS OF HfcSlOD. 

For in the grove of the far-darting god 
He found him : and insatiable of war 
His father Mars beside. Both bright in arms, 
Bright as the sheen of burning flame, they stood 
On their high chariot ; and the horses fleet 
Trampled the ground with rending hoofs : around 
In parted circle smoked the cloudy dust, 
Up-dash'd beneath the trampling hoofs, and cars 
Of complicated frame. The well-framed cars 
* Rattled aloud : loud clash'd the wheels : while rapt 
In their full speed the horses flew. Rejoiced 
The noble Cygnus ; for the hope was his, 
Jove's warlike offspring and his charioteer 
To slay, and strip them of their gorgeous mail. 
But to his vows the Prophet-god of day 
Turn'd a deaf ear : for he himself set on 
Th' assault of Hercules. Now all the grove, 
And Phoebus' altar, flash'd with glimmering arms 
Of that tremendous god : himself blazed light, 
And darted radiance from his eye-balls glared 
As it were flame. But who of mortal mould 
Had e'er endured in daring opposite 
To rush before him, save but Hercules, 
And Iolaus, an illustrious name ? 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 217 

For mighty strength was theirs: and arms that stretch'd 
From their broad shoulders unapproachable 
In valorous force, above their nervous frames : 
He therefore thus bespoke his charioteer : 

" Oh hero Iolaus ! dearest far 
To me of all the race of mortal men ; 
I deem it sure that 'gainst the blest of Heaven 
Amphitryon sinn'd, when to the fair-wall'd Thebes 
He came, forsaking Tirynth's well-built walls, 
Electryon midst the strife of wide-brow'd herds 
Slain by his hand : to Creon suppliant came, 
And her of flowing robe, Henioche : 
Who straight embraced, and all of needful aid 
Lent hospitable, as to suppliant due : 
And more for this, e'en from the heart they gave 
All honour and observance. So he lived, 
Exulting in his graceful-ankled spouse 
Alcmena. When the rapid year rolFd round, 
We, far unlike in stature and in soul, 
Were born, thy sire and I : him Jove bereaved 
Of wisdom ; who from his parental home 
Went forth, and to the fell Eurystheus bore 
His homage. Wretch ! for he most sure bewaiPd 
In after-time that grievous fault, a deed 



218 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Irrevocable. On myself has Fate 

Laid heavy labours. But, oh friend ! oh now 

Quick snatch the purple reins of these my steeds 

ftapid of hoof: the manly courage rouse 

Within thee : now with strong unerring grasp 

Guide the swift chariot's whirl, and wind the steeds 

Rapid of hoof: fear nought the dismal yell 

Of mortal-slayer Mars, whilst to and fro 

He ranges fierce Apollo's hallow'd grove 

With frenzying shout : for, be he as he may 

War-mighty, he of war shall take his fill." 

Then answer 'd Iolaus : " Oh revered ! 
Doubtless the father of the gods and men 
Thy head delights to honour ; and the god 
Who keeps the wall of Thebes and guards her towers, 
Bull-visaged Neptune : so be sure they give 

The wall of Thebes] Noah was directed in express terras to 
build Thiba, an ark : it is the very word made use of by the 
sacred writer. Many colonies that went abroad styled them- 
selves Thebeans, in reference to the ark : as the memory of the 
deluge was held very sacred. Hence there occur many cities of 
the name of Theba, not in iEgypt only and Boeotia, but in 
Cilicia, Ionia, Attica^ &c. It was sometimes expressed Thiba ; 
a town of which name was in Pontus : it is called Thibis by 
Pliny ; and he mentions a notion which prevailed, that the people 
of this place could not sink in water. Bryant. 

Bull-visaged Neptune.'] The patriarch was esteemed the great 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 219 

Unto thy hand this mortal huge and strong, 
That from the conflict thou mayst bear away 
High glory. But now haste — in warlike mail 
Dress now thy limbs, that, rapidly as thought 
Mingling the shock of cars, we may be join'd 
In battle. He th' undaunted son of Jove 
Shall strike not with his terrors, nor yet me 
Iphiclides : but swiftly, as I deem, 
Shall he to flight betake him, from the race 
Of brave Alcaeus : who now pressing nigh 
Gain on their foes and languish for the shout 
Of closing combat ; to their eager ear 
More grateful than the banquet's revelry." 

He said : and Hercules smiled stern his joy 
Elate of thought : for he had spoken words 
Most welcome. Then with winged accents thus : 
" Jove-foster'd hero ! it is e'en at hand, 
The battle's rough encounter : thou, as erst, 



deity of the sea : and at the same time was represented under 
the semblance of a bull, or with the head of that animal : and 
as all rivers were looked upon as the children of the ocean, they 
likewise were represented in the same manner. Bryant. 

This seems to have been a double emblem : referring to the 
bull Apis, the representative of the father of husbandry, Osiris, 
and to the roaring of waters. 



22G REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

In martial prudence firm, aright, aleft, 
With vantage of the fray, unerring guide 
Arion huge, the sable-maned, and me 
Aid in the doubtful contest, as thou mayst." 

Thus having said, he sheathed his legs in greaves 
Of mountain brass, resplendent- white : famed gift 
Of Vulcan : o'er his breast he fitted close 
The corselet, variegated, beautiful, 
Of shining gold ; this Jove-born Pallas gave, 
When first he rush'd to meet the mingling groans 
Of battle. Then the mighty man athwart 
His shoulder slung the sword, whose edge repels 
Th' approach of mortal harms : and clasp'd around 
His bosom, and reclining o'er his back, 
He cast the hollow quiver. Lurk'd therein 
Full many arrows : shuddering horror they 
Inflicted, and the agony of death 
Sudden, that chokes the suffocated voice : 
The points were barb'd with death, and bitter steep'd 
In human tears : burnish'd the lengthening shafts : 
And they were feather'd from the tawny plume 
Of eagles. Now he grasp'd the solid spear 
Sharpen'd with brass : and on his brows of strength 
Placed the forged helm, high-wrought in adamant, 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 221 

That cased the temples round, and fenced the head 
Of Hercules : the man of heavenly birth. 

Then with his hands he raised The Shield, of disk 
Diversified : might none with missile aim 
Pierce, nor th' impenetrable substance rive 
Shattering : a wondrous frame : since all throughout 
Bright with enamel, and with ivory, 
And mingled metal ; and with ruddy gold 
Refulgent, and with azure plates inlaid. 
The scaly terror of a dragon coil'd 
Full in the central field ; unspeakable ; 
With eyes oblique retorted, that aslant 
Shot gleaming flame : his hollow jaw was fill'd 
Dispersedly with jagged fangs of white, 
Grim, unapproachable. And next above 
The dragon's forehead fell, stern Strife in air 
Hung hovering, and array'd the war of men : 
Haggard ; whose aspect from all mortals reft 
All mind and soul ; whoe'er in brunt of arms 
Should match their strength, and face the son of Jove. 

Mingled metal.] m.EKTfov is not amber, but a mixed metal : 
which Pliny describes as consisting of three parts gold, and the 
fourth silver. Electrum is one of the materials in the Shield of 
JEneas, iEn. viii. : 

And mingled metals damask/d o'er with gold. Pitt. 



222 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Below this earth their spirits to th' abyss 
Descend : and through the flesh that wastes away 
Beneath the parching sun, their whitening bones 
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust. 

Pursuit was there, and fiercely rallying Flight, 
Tumult and Terror : burning Carnage glow'd : 
Wild Discord madden'd there, and frantic Rout 
Ranged to and fro. A deathful Destiny 
There grasp'd a living man, that bled afresh 
From recent wound : another, yet unharm'd, 
Dragg'd furious ; and a third, already dead, 
TraiPd by the feet amid the throng of war : 
And o'er her shoulders was a garment thrown 

Pursuit was there.] Homer, II. vi. 5 : 

She charged her shoulder with the dreadful Shield, 
The shaggy iEgis, border'd thick around 
With Terror : there was Discord, Prowess there, 
There hot Pursuit. 

There Discord raged, there Tumult, and the force 
Of ruthless Destiny. She now a chief 
Seiz'd newly wounded, and now captive held 
Another yet unhurt, and now a third 
Dragg'd breathless through the battle by his feet : 
And all her garb was dappled thick with blood. 
Like living men they traversed and they strove, 
And dragg'd by turns the bodies of the slain. 

Cowper, book xviii. Shield of Achilles. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 223 

Dabbled in human blood : and in her look 
Was horror : and a deep funereal cry 
Broke from her lips. There indescribable 
Twelve serpent heads rose dreadful : and with fear 
Froze all, who drew on earth the breath of life, 
Whoe'er should match their strength in brunt of arms, 
And face the son of Jove : and oft as he 
Moved to the battle, from their clashing fangs 
A sound was heard. Such miracles display'd 
The buckler's field, with living blazonry 
Resplendent : and those fearful snakes were streak'd 
O'er their caerulean backs with streaks of jet : 
And their jaws blacken'd with a jetty dye. 

Wild from the forest, herds of boars were there, 
And lions, mutual-glaring ; and in wrath 
Leap'd on each other ; and by troops they drove 
Their onset : nor yet these nor those recoil'd, 
Nor quaked in fear. Of both the backs uprose 
Bristling with anger : for a lion huge 
Lay stretched amidst them, and two boars beside 
Lifeless : the sable blood down-dropping ooz'd 

Herds of boars.] That animal (the wild boar) was no less ter- 
rible on the opposite coast of Asia than in Greece : as we learn 
from Herodotus, book i. c. 34. Gillies. 



224? REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Into the ground. So these with bowed backs 
Lay dead beneath the terrible lions : they, 
For this the more incensed, both savage boars 
And tawny lions, chafing sprang to war. 

There too the battle of the Lapithae 
Was wrought; the spear-arm'd warriors: Caeneusking, 
Hopleus, Phalerus, aud Pirithous, 
And Dryas, and Exadius : Prolochus, 
Mopsus of Titaressa, Ampyx' son, 
A branch of Mars, and Theseus like a god : 
Son of iEgeus : silver were their limbs, 
Their armour golden : and to them opposed 
The Centaur band stood thronging : Asbolus, 
Prophet of birds ; Petrseus huge of height ; 
Arctus, and Urius, and of raven locks 
Mimas ; the two Peucidse, Dryalus, 
And Perimedes : all of silver frame, 
And grasping golden pine-trees in their hands. 
At once they onset made : in very life 
They rush'd, and hand to hand tumultuous closed 
With pines and clashing spears. There fleet of hoof 

The battle of the Lapitha.'] This forms the subject of the 
alto-relievo on the entablature of the Parthenon, or the temple 
of Minerva: ascribed to Phidias. Seethe "Memorandum" on 
the Elgin marbles. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 225 

The steeds were standing of stern-visaged Mars 
In gold : and he himself, tearer of spoils, 
Life-waster, purpled all with dropping blood, 
As one who slew the living and despoil'd, 
'Loud-shouting to the warrior-infantry 
There vaulted on his chariot. Him beside 
Stood Fear and Consternation : high their hearts 
Panted, all eager for the war of men. 

There too Minerva rose, leader of hosts, 
Resembling Pallas when she would array 
The marshall'd battle. In her grasp the spear, 
And on her brows a golden helm : athwart 
Her shoulders thrown her aegis. Went she forth 
In this array to meet the dreadful shout 
Of war. And there a tuneful choir appear'd 
Of heaven's immortals : in the midst the son 
Of Jove and of Latona sweetly rang 
Upon his golden harp. Th' Olympian mount, 
Dwelling of gods, thrill'd back the broken sound. 
And there were seen th' assembly of the gods 
Listening, encircled with their blaze of glory : 
And in sweet contest with Apollo there 
The virgins of Pieria raised the strain 
Preluding ; and they seem'd as though they sang 

Q 



226 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

With clear sonorous voice. And there appear'd 

A sheltering haven from the untamed rage 

Of ocean. It was wrought of tin refined, 

And rounded by the chisel : and it seem'd 

Like to the dashing wave : and in the midst 

Full many dolphins chased the fry, and show'd 

As though they swam the waters, to and fro 

Darting tumultuous. Two of silver scale, 

Panting above the wave, the fishes mute 

Gorged, that beneath them shook their quivering fins 

In brass : but on the crag a fisher sate 

Observant : in his grasp he held a net, 

Like one that, poising, rises to the throw. 

There was the horseman, fair-hair 'd Danae's son, 
Perseus : nor yet the buckler with his feet 
Touch'd, nor yet distant hover'd : strange to think : 
For nowhere on the surface of the shield 
He rested : so the crippled artist-god 
Illustrious framed him with his hands in gold. 
Bound to his feet were sandals wing'd : a sword 
Of brass with hilt of sable ebony 
Hung round him from the shoulders by a thong : 
Swift e'en as thought he flew. The visage grim 
Of monstrous Gorgon all his back o'erspread : 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 227 

And wrought in silver, wondrous to behold, 
A veil was drawn around it, whence in gold 
Hung glittering fringes : and the dreadful helm 
Of Pluto clasp'd the temples of the prince, 
Shedding a night of darkness. Thus outstretch'd 
In air, he seem'd like one to trembling flight 
Betaken. Close behind the Gorgons twain 
Of nameless terror unapproachable 
Came rushing : eagerly they stretch'd their arms 
To seize him : from the pallid adamant, 
Audibly as they rush'd, the clattering shield 
Clank'd with a sharp shrill sound. Two grisly snakes 
Hung from their girdles, and with forking tongues 
Lick'd their inflected jaws ; and violent gnash'd 
Their fangs fell glaring : from around their heads 
Those Gorgons grim a flickering horror cast 
Through the wide air. Above them warrior men 
Waged battle, grasping weapons in their hands. 
Some from their city and their sires repell'd 

Some from their city.'] Homer, II. book xvii. Shield of 

Achilles : 

The other city by two glittering hosts 

Invested stood : and a dispute arose 
Between the hosts, whether to burn the town 
And lay all waste, or to divide the spoil. 
Meantime the citizens, still undismay'd, 
8 2 



223 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Destruction : others hasten'd to destroy : 
And many press'd the plain, but more still held 
The combat. On the strong-constructed towers 
Stood women, shrieking shrill, and rent their cheeks 
In very life, by Vulcan's glorious craft. 
The elders hoar with age assembled stood 
Without the gates, and to the blessed gods 
Their hands uplifted, for their fighting sons 
Fear-stricken. These again the combat held. 
Behind them stood the Fates, of aspect black, 
Grim, slaughter-breathing, stern, insatiable, 
Gnashing their white fangs ; and fierce conflict held 
For those who fell. Each eager-thirsting sought 
To quaff the sable blood. Whom first they snatch'd 
Prostrate, or staggering with the fresh-made wound, 
On him they struck their talons huge : the soul 
Fled down th' abyss, the horror-freezing gulf 
Of Tartarus. They, glutted to the heart 
With human gore, behind them cast the corse : 
And back with hurrying rage they turn'd to seek 
The throng of battle. And hard by there stood 
Clotho and Lachesis ; and Atropos, 

Surrendered not the town, but taking arms 
Prepared an ambush ; and the wives and boys, 
With all the hoary elders, kept the walls. Cowper, 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 229 

Somewhat in years inferior: nor was she 
A mighty goddess : yet those other Fates 
Transcending, and in birth the elder far. 
And all around one man in cruel strife 
Were join'd : and on each other turn'd in wrath 
Their glowing eyes : and mingling desperate hands 
And talons mutual strove. And near to them 
Stood Misery : wan, ghastly, worn with woe : 



■And near to them 



Stood Misery. ] Warton observes, 

History of English poetry, vol. i. p. 468 : " The French and 
Italian poets, whom Chaucer imitates, abound in allegorical 
personages : and it is remarkable that the early poets of Greece 
and Rome were fond of these creations : we have in Hesiod 
' Darkness : ' and many others ; if the Shield of Hercules be of 
his hand." But it seems to have escaped the writer that it is not 
literal, but figurative Daikness which is personified. Guietus 
ingeniously supposes that it is meant for the dimness of death. 
Homer, indeed, applies to this the same term : in the death of 
Eurymachus, Od. xxii. 88 : 

Kar o<p3&\uuv &%??' AXATI. 

A darkening mist was pour'd upon his eyes. 

Tanaquil Faber, on Longnus, contends that «%Xi/; is here 
Sorrow Sorrow is personified n a fragment of Ennius : 

Omnibus endo locis ingens apparet imago 

Tristitia. 

Sorrow, a giant form, uprears the head 

In every place. 

This is adopted by Grsevius and Robinson. In like manner 



230 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Arid, and swoln of knees ; with hunger's pains 
Faint-falling : from her lean hands long the nails 
Out-grew : an ichor from her nostrils flow'd : 
Blood from her cheeks distilPd to earth : with teeth 
All wide disclosed in grinning agony 
She stood : a cloud of dust her shoulders spread, 
And her eyes ran with tears. But next arose 
A well-tower'd city, by seven golden gates 

$»; its opposite, light, is often used for x a ? a > J ov: as appears in 
the oriental style of scripture. But they have omitted to notice 
that this is a specific sorrow : for what connexion have these 
horrible symptoms with sorrow in general ? I conceive that the 
prosopopoeia describes the misery attendant on war : and espe- 
cially in a city besieged, with its usual accompaniments of famine, 
blood, and tears, and the dust or ashes of mourning. Longinus 
selects the line " an ichor from her nostrils flowed," as an in- 
stance of the false sublime ; and compares it with Homer's verse 
on Discord, 

Treading on earth, her forehead touches heaven. 

This is to compare two things totally unlike: why should an 
image of exhaustion and disease be thought to aim at sublimity ? 
The objection of Longinus that it tends to excite disgust rather 
than terror is nugatory. The poet did not intend to excite ter- 
ror, but horror : that kind of horror which arises from the con- 
templation of physical suffering. 

A zcell-tozoer'd city.] Homer, II. book xviii. Shield of Achil- 
les : 

Two splendid cities also there he form'd 
Such as men build : in one were to be seen 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 231 

Enclosed, that fitted to their lintels hung : 
There men in dances and in festive joys 
Held revelry. Some on the smooth-wheel'd car 
A virgin bride conducted : then burst forth 
Aloud the marriage- song : and far and wide 
Long splendours flash'd from many a quivering torch 
Borne in the hands of slaves. Gay-blooming girls 
Preceded, and the dancers follow'd blithe : 
These with shrill pipe indenting the soft lip 
Breathed melody, while broken echoes thrill'd 
Around them : to the lyre with flying touch 
Those led the love-enkindling dance. A group 
Of youths was elsewhere imaged to the flute 
Disporting : some in dances and in song, 
In laughter others. To the minstrel's flute 
So pass'd they on ; and the whole city seem'd 
As filPd with pomps, with dances, and with feasts. 
Others again, without the city walls, 

Rites matrimonial solemnized with pomp 

Of sumptuous banquets. Forth they led the brides 

Each from her chamber, and along the streets 

With torches usher'd them : and with the voice 

Of hymeneal song heard all around. 

Here striplings danced in circles to the sound 

Of pipe and harp ; while in the portals stood 

Women, admiring all the gallant show. Cowper. 



232 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Vaulted on steeds and madden'd for the goal. 
Others as husbandmen appear'd, and broke 
With coulter the rich glebe, and gather'd up 
Their tunics neatly girded. Next arose 
A field thick-set with depth of corn : where some 
With sickle reap'd the stalks, their speary heads 
Bent, as weigh'd down with pods of swelling grain, 
The fruits of Ceres. Others into bands 
Gather'd, and threw upon the threshing-floor 
The sheaves. And some again hard by were seen 

Vaulted on steeds.] This circumstance has been thought to 
betray a later age : as it is alleged, that the only instance of 
riding on horseback mentioned by Homer is that of Diomed, who, 
with Ulysses, rides the horses of Rhesus of which he has made 
prize. But though chariot-horses only are found in the Homeric 
battles, there is an allusion to horsemanship, as an exhibition of 
skill, in a simile of the 15th book of the Iliad, v. 679 ; where the 
rider is described as riding four horses at once, and vaulting from 
one to the other. 

Others as husbandmen appear'd.] Homer II. xviii. Shield of 
Achilles : 

He also graved on it a fallow field 

Rich, spacious, and well-tilPd. Plowers not few 

There driving to and fro their sturdy teams 

Laboured the ground. 

There too he form'd the likeness of a field 

Crowded with corn : in which the reapers toil'd 

Each with a sharp-tooth'd sickle in his hand. 

Along the furrow here the harvest fell 

In frequent handfuls: there they bound the sheaves. Cowper. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 23$ 

Holding the vine-sickle, who clusters cut 
From the ripe vines ; which from the vintagers 
Others in frails received, or bore away, 
In baskets thus up-piled, the cluster'd grapes, 
Or black or pearly-white, cut from deep ranks 
Of spreading vines, whose tendrils curling twined 
In silver, heavy-foliaged : near them rose 
The ranks of vines, by Vulcan's curious craft 
Figured in gold. The vines leaf-shaking curl'd 
Round silver props. They therefore on their way 
Pass'd jocund to one minstrel's flageolet, 
Burthen'd with grapes that blacken'd in the sun. 
Some also trod the wine-press, and some quaff'd 

In baskets thus up-piled.] Homer II. xviii. Shield of Achilles : 

There also, laden with its fruit, he form'd 
A vineyard all of gold : purple he made 
The clusters : and the vines supported stood 
By poles of silver, set in even rows. 
The trench he colour'd sable, and around 
Fenced it with tin. One only path it show'd : 
By which the gatherers, when they stnpp'd the vines, 
Pass'd and repass'd. There youths and maidens blithe 
In frails of wicker bore the luscious fruit ; 
While in the midst a boy on his shrill harp 
Harmonious play'd : and ever as he struck 
The chord, sang to it with a slender voice. 
They smote the ground together, and with song 
And sprightly reed came dancing on behind. Cowper, 



234 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

The foaming must. But in another part 
Were men who wrestled, or in gymnic fight 
Wielded the csestus. Elsewhere men of chase 
Were taking the fleet hares. Two keen-tooth'd dogs 
Bounded beside : these ardent in pursuit, 
Those with like ardour doubling on their flight. 
Next them were horsemen, who sore effort made 
To win the priz e of contestand hard toil. 
High o'er the well-compacted chariots hung 
The charioteers : the rapid horses loosed 

Hung 



The charioteers ] This may be com- 
pared with the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus, in 
the Iliad, xxiii. 362, to which, however, it is very inferior. 

All raised the lash together ; with the reins 
All smote their steeds, and urged them to the strife 
Vociferating : they with rapid pace 
Scouring the field soon left the fleet afar. 
Dark, like a stormy cloud, uprose the dust 
Beneath them, and their undulating manes 
Play'd in the breezes : now the level field 
With gliding course, the rugged now they pass'd 
With bounding wheels aloft : meantime erect 
The drivers stood : with palpitating heart 
Each sought the prize : each urged his steeds aloud ; 
They, flying, fill'd with dust the daiken'd air. Cowper. 
This description apparently suggested to Virgil the chariot-race 

in the Georgics iii. 402, which Dryden has rendered with all the 

fire of the original. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 235 

At their full stretch, and shook the floating reins. 
Rebounding from the ground with many a shock 
Flew clattering the firm cars, and creak'd aloud 
The naves of the round wheels. They therefore toil'd 
Endless : nor conquest yet at any time 
Achiev'd they, but a doubtful strife maintain'd. 
In the mid-course the prize, a tripod huge, 
Was placed in open sight ; and it was carved 
In gold : the skilful Vulcan's glorious craft. 

Rounding the uttermost verge the ocean flow'd 
As in full swell of waters : and the shield 
All- variegated with whole circle bound. 
Swans of high-hovering wing there clamour'd shrill, 
And many skimm'd the breasted surge : and nigh 
Fishes were tossing in tumultuous leaps. 
Sight marvellous e'en to thundering Jove : whose will 
Bade Vulcan frame the buckler; vast and strong. 
This fitting to his grasp the strong-nerved son 
Of Jupiter now shook with ease : and swift 
As from his father's aegis-wielding arm 
The bolted lightning darts, he vaulted sheer 

The ocean floied.] Homer, U. xviii. Shield of Achilles : 
Last with the might of ocean's boundless flood 
He fill'd the border of the wondrous shield. Cowper. 

3 



236 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Above the harness'd chariot at a bound 

Into the seat : the hardy charioteer 

Stood o'er the steeds from high, and guided strong 

The crooked car. Now near to them approach'd 

Pallas, the blue- eyed goddess, and address'd 

These winged words in animating voice : 

" Race of the far-famed Lyngeus ! both all-hail ! 

Now verily the ruler of the Blest, 

E'en Jove, doth give you strength to spoil of life 

Cygnus your foe, and strip his gorgeous arms. 

But I will breathe a word within thine ear 

In counsel, oh most mighty midst the strong ! 

Now soon as e'er from Cygnus thou hast reft 

The sweets of life, there leave him : on that spot, 

Him and his armour : but th' approach of Mars, 

Slayer of mortals, watch with w T ary eye : 

And where thy glance discerns a part exposed, 

Defenceless of the well-wrought buckler, strike ! 

With thy sharp point there wound him, and recede: 

For know, thou art not fated to despoil 

" The steeds and glorious armour of a god." 

Race of the far-famed Lyngeus.] Lyngeus was the ancestor 
of Perseus, the son of Danae, and the father of Alcaeus : of 
whom Amphitryon was the son. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 237 

Thus having said, the goddess all-divine, 
Aye holding in her everlasting hands 
Conquest and glory, rose into the car 
Impetuous : to the war-steeds shouted fierce 
The noble Iolaus : from the shout 
They starting snatch'd the flying car, and hid 
With dusty cloud the plain : for she herself, 
The goddess azure-eyed, sent into them 
Wild courage, clashing on her brandish'd shield : 
Earth groan'd around. That moment with like pace 
E'en as a flame or tempest came they on, 
Cygnus the tamer of the steed, and Mars 
Unsated with the roar of war. And now 
The coursers mid-way met, and face to face 
Neigh'd shrill : the broken echoes rang around. 
Then him the first stern Hercules bcspake. 
" Oh soft of nature ! why dost thou obstruct 
The rapid steeds of men, who toils have proved 
And hardships ? Outward turn thy burnish'd car : 
Pass outward from the track and yield the way : 
For I to Trachys ride, of obstacle 
Impatient : to the royal Ceyx : he 
O'er Trachys rules in venerable power, 
As needs not thee be told, who hast to wife 



238 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

His blue-eyed daughter Themisthonbe : 

Soft-one ! for not from thee shall Mars himself 

Inhibit death, if truly hand to hand 

We wage the battle : and e'en this I say 

That elsewhere, heretofore, himself has proved 

My mighty spear : when on the sandy beach 

Of Pylos ardour irrepressible 

Of combat seized him, and to me opposed 

He stood : but thrice, when stricken by my lance, 

Earth propp'd his fall, and thrice his targe was cleft 

The fourth time urging on my utmost force 

His ample shield I shattering rived, his thigh 

Transpierced, and headlong in the dust he fell 

Beneath my rushing spear : so there the weight 

Of shame upon him fell midst those of heaven, 

" His gory trophies leaving to these hands." 

So said he : but in no wise to obey 
Enter'd the thought of Cygnus the spear-skill'd : 
Nor rein'd he back the chariot-whirling steeds. 

Then truly from their close-compacted cars 
Instant as thought they leap'd to earth : the son 
Of kingly Mars, the son of mighty Jove. 
Aside, though not remote, the charioteers 
The coursers drove of flowing manes : but then 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 239 

Beneath the trampling sound of rushing feet 

The broad earth sounded hollow : and as rocks 

From some high mountain-top precipitate 

Leap with a bound, and o'er each other whiiTd 

Shock in the dizzying fall : and many an oak 

Of lofty branch, pine-tree and poplar deep 

Of root are crash'd beneath them, as their course 

Rapidly rolls, till now they touch the plain ; 

So met these foes encountering, and so burst 

Their mighty clamour. Echoing loud throughout 

The city of the Myrmidons gave back 

Their lifted voices, and Iolchos famed, 

And Arne, and Anthea's grass-girt walls, 

And Helice. Thus with amazing shout 

They join'd in battle : all-considering Jove 

Then greatly thunder'd : from the clouds of heaven 



-As rocks 



From some high mountain-top. ] Homer, II. book 

xiii. 

Then Hector led himself 

Right on : impetuous as a rolling rock 

Destructive : torn by torrent waters off 

From its old lodgment on the mountain's brow, 

It bounds, it shoots away : the crashing wood 

Falls under it : impediment or check 

None stays its fury, till the level found 

At last, there overcome it rolls no more. Cowper. 



240 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

He cast forth dews of blood, and signal thus 
Of onset gave to his high-daring son. 

As in the mountain thickets the wild boar, 
Grim to behold, and arm'd with jutting fangs, 
Now with his hunters meditates in wrath 
The conflict, whetting his white tusks aslant : 
Foam drops around his churning jaws ; his eyes 
Show like to glimmering fires, and o'er his neck 
And roughen'd back he raises up erect 
The starting bristles, from the chariot whirl'd 
By steeds of war such leap'd the son of Jove. 

'Twas in that season when, on some green bough 
High-perch'd, the dusky-wing'd cicada first 

He cast forth dews of blood.] Iliad, xvi, 459. Death of 
Sarpedon : 

The Sire of gods and men 
Dissented not : but on the earth distill'd 
A sanguine shower, in honour of a son 
Dear to him. Cowper. 

As in the mountain thickets. Homer, Iliad xiii. 

As in the mountains, conscious of his force, 
The wild boar waits a coming multitude 
Of boisterous hunters to his lone retreat : 
Arching his bristly spine he stands : his eyes 
Beam fire : and whetting his bright tusks, he burns 
To drive not dogs alone, but men, to flight: 
So stood the royal Cretan. Cowper. 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 241 

Shrill chants to man a summer note ; his drink, 
His balmy food, the vegetative dew : 
The livelong day from early dawn he pours 
His voice, what time the sun's exhaustive heat 
Fierce dries the frame : 'twas in that season when 
The bristly ears of millet spring with grain 
Which they in summer sow : when the crude grape 
Faint reddens on the vine, which Bacchus gave 
The joy or anguish of the race of men ; — 
E'en in that season join'd the war ; and vast 
The battle's tumult rose into the heaven. 
As two grim lions for a roebuck slain 
Wroth in contention rush, and them betwixt 
The sound of roaring and of clashing teeth 
Ariseth ; or as vultures, curved of beak, 
Crooked of talon, on a steepy rock 

As two grim lions. ,] Iliad xvi. : 

Then contest such 

Arose between them, as two lions wage 

Contending in the mountains for a a deer 

New-slain : both hunger-pinched, and haughty both. 

Cowper. 
As vultures curved of beak.] Iliad xvi. : 

As two vultures fight 
Bow-beak'd, crook-talon'd, on some lofty rock 
Clanging their plumes, so they together rush 
With dreadful cries. Cowper. 

R 



Wl REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Contest loud-screaming ; if perchance below 
Some mountain-pastur'd goat or forest-stag 
Sleek press the plain ; whom far the hunter youtli 
Pierced with fleet arrow from the bow-string shrill 
Dismiss'd, and elsewhere wander'd, of the spot 
Unknowing : they with keenest heed the prize 
Mark, and in swooping rage each other tear 
With bitterest conflict : so vociferous rush'd 
The warriors on each other. Cygnus, then, 
Aiming to slay the son of Jupiter 
Unmatch'd in strength, against the buckler struck 
His brazen lance, but through the metal plate 
Broke not ; the present of a god preserved. 
On th' other side he of Amphitryon named, 
Strong Hercules, between the helm and shield 
Drove his long spear ; and underneath the chin 
Through the bare neck smote violent and swift. 
The murderous ashen beam at once the nerves 
Twain of the neck cut sheer ; for all the man 
Drop'd, and his force went from him : down he fell 
Headlong : as falls a thunder-blasted oak, 

As falls a thunder-blasted oak.'] Iliad xiv. : 

As when Jove's arm omnipotent an oak 
Prostrates uprooted on the plain : a fume 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 24-3 

Or sky-capt rock, riven by the lightning shaft 
Of Jove, in smouldering smoke is hurl'd from high, 
So fell he : and his brass-emblazon'd mail 
Clatter'd around him. Jove's firm-hearted son 
Then left the corse, abandon'd where it lay : 
But wary watch'd the mortal-slayer god 
Approach, and view'd him o'er with terrible eyes 
Stern-lowering. As a lion, who has fall'n 
Perchance on some stray beast, with griping claws 
Intent, strips down the lacerated hide ; 
Drains instantaneous the sweet life, and gluts 
E'en to the fill his gloomy heart with blood ; 

Rises sulphureous from the riven trunk ; 

So fell the might of Hector, to the earth 

Smitten at once. Down dropp'd his idle spear, 

And with his helmet and his shield, himself 

Also : loud thunder'd all his gorgeous arms. Cowper. 

As a lion, who hasfalVn 



Perchance on some stray beast. ] Iliad xvii. : 

But as the lion on the mountains bred 
Glorious in strength, when he hath seiz'd the best 
And fairest of the herd, with savage fangs 
First breaks the neck, then laps the bloody paunch, 
Torn wide : meantime around him, but remote, 
Dogs stand, and huntsmen shouting, yet by fear 
Repressed, annoy him not, nor dare approach ; 
So these all wanted courage to oppose 
The glorious Menelaus. Cowpep.. 

R 2 



VP 



244 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

Green-eyed he glares in fierceness ; with his tail 
Lashes his shoulders and his swelling sides, 
And with his feet tears up the ground ; not one 
Might dare to look upon him, nor advance 
Nigh, with desire of conflict : such in truth 
The war-insatiate Hercules to Mars 
Stood in array, and gather'd in his soul 
Prompt courage. But the other near approach'd, 
Anguish'd at heart ; and both encountering rush'd 
With cries of battle. As when from high ridge 
Of some hill-top abrupt, tumbles a crag 
Precipitous, and sheer, a giddy space, 
Bounds in a whirl and rolls impetuous down : 
Shrill rings the vehement crash, till some steep clift 
Obstructs : to this the mass is borne along ; 
This wedges it immoveable : e'en so 
Destroyer Mars, bowing the chariot, rush'd, 
Yelling vociferous with a shout : e'en so, 
As utterance prompt, met Hercules the shock 
And firm sustain'd. But Jove-born Pallas came 
With darkening shield uplifted, and to Mars 
Stood interposed: and scowling with her eyes 
Tremendous, thus address'd her winged words : 
" Mars ! hold thy furious valour : stay those hands 






THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 245 

In prowess inaccessible : for know 

It is not lawful for thee to divest 

Slain Hercules of these his gorgeous arms, 

Bold-hearted son of Jove : but come ; rest thou 

From battle, nor oppose thyself to me." 

She said : nor yet persuaded aught the soul 
Of Mars, the mighty of heart. With a great shout, 
He, brandishing his weapon like a flame, 
Sprang rapid upon Hercules, in haste 
To slay ; and, for his slaughter'd son incensed, 
With violent effort hurl'd his brazen spear 
'Gainst the capacious targe. The blue-eyed maid 
Stoop'd from the chariot, and the javelin's force 
Turn'd wide. Sore torment seiz'd the breast of Mars: 
He bared his keen-edged falchion, and at once 
Rush'd on the dauntless Hercules : but he, 
The war-insatiate, as the God approach'd, 
Beneath the well-wrought shield the thigh exposed 
Wounded with all his strength, and thrusting rived 
The shield's large disk, and cleft it with his lance, 

Stoop'd from the chariot, ,] Iliad v. : 

When with determin'd fury Mars 
O'er yoke and bridle hurl'd his glittering spear : 
Minerva caught : and turning it, it pass'd 
The hero's chariot-side, dismiss'd in vain. Cowper. 



246 REMAINS OF HESIOD. 

And in the middle-way threw him to earth 
Prostrate. But Fear and Consternation swift 
Urged nigh his well-wheePd chariot : from the face 
Of broad-track'd earth they raised him on the car 
Variously framed: thence lash'd with scourge the steeds, 
And bounding up the vast Olympus flew. 

But now Alcmena's son and his compeer, 
The glorious Iolaus, having stripp'd 
From Cygnus' shoulders the fair armour's spoil, 
Retraced their way direct, and instant reach'd 
The city Trachys with their fleet-hoof d steeds : 
While pass'd the goddess of the azure eyes 
To great Olympus, and her father's towers. 

But Ceyx o'er the corse of Cygnus raised 
A tomb. Innumerable people graced 
His obsequies : both they who dwelt hard by 
The city of the illustrious king, and they 
Of Anthe, of Iolchos wide-renown'd, 
Of Arne, of the Myrmidonian towers, 
And Helice. So gather'd there around 
A numerous people : honouring duteous thus 
Ceyx, beloved of the blessed gods. 

But the huge mount and monumental stone 

The huge mount and monumental stone.~\ By the words tomb 



tm 



THE SHIELD OF HERCULES. 247 

Anaurus, foaming high with wintry rains, 
Swept from the sight away : Apollo this 
Commanded : for that Cygnus ambush'd spoil'd 
In violence the Delphic hecatombs. 

and monument, ra^og and <r«/tt«, I understand a mount of earth 
and a pillar of stone on the top of it: although Homer II. xxiv. 
v. 801, applies cmpa to the mount: which he seems to describe 
as raised of stones: 

Xsvavreg h to c-tt,ua i TraXiv mcv. 

So casting up the tomb, they back returned. 



gppentjtjc* 



ft 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



George Chapman was born in 1557. Wood, in 
the Athena? Oxonienses, imagines that he was a sworn 
servant either to James the First or his queen ; and 
says that he was highly valued ; but not so much as 
Ben Jonson : " a person of most reverend aspect, 
religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a 
poet." After living to the age of 77 years he died 
on the 12th day of May 1634, in the parish of St. 
Giles's in the Fields, and was buried there on the 
south side of the church-yard. His friend Inigo 
Jones erected a monument to his memory. Of his * 

* Granger, in his biographical history of England, speaks 
slightingly of Chapman's Homer on Pope's authority. Pope sin- 
gularly explains what he considers as the defects of this transla- 
tion, by saying that " the nature of the man may account for 
his whole performance : as he appears to have been of an arro- 
gant turn, and an enthusiast in poetry." A strange disqualifica- 
tion! He confesses, also, that " what very much contributed to 
cover his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his transla- 
tion: which is something like what one might imagine Homer 
himself would have written before he arrived at years of discre- 
tion." Preface to Homer. 

Mr. Godwin, in his " Lives of Edward and John Philips, ne- 
phews of Milton," has illustrated the natural energy of style in 
Chapman's Homer with critical taste and just feeling. Chap. x. 
p. 243. 



252 

translation of Homer, Dryden tells us that Waller 
used to say he never could read it without incredible 
transport. Besides other translations and poems, he 
was the author of 17 dramatic pieces. — See Dodsley's 
Collections of Old Plays, vol. iv. 

His version of " The Georgicks of Hesiod " is in- 
scribed in an Epistle Dedicatorie to " The most noble 
Combiner of Learning and Honour Sir Francis Ba- 
con, Knight; Lord High Chancellor of England, &c." 
and prefixed are two copies of commendatory verses 
with the signatures of Michael Drayton, and Ben 
Jonson. 

This version is generally faithful both to the sense 
and spirit of the author. Amidst much quaintness 
of style and ruggedness of numbers, we meet with 
gleams of a rich expression and with a grasp of lan- 
guage, which, however extravagantly bold, bears the 
stamp of a genuine poet. Cooke had probably not 
seen this translation, or he must have avoided many 
of the errours into wliich he fell. 



SPECIMENS 



OF 

CHAPMAN'S HESIOD. 

WITH GLOSSARIAL AND CRITICAL EXPLANATIONS. 



I. 

-Thus to him began 



The Cloud-Assembler : Thou most crafty Man, 
That ioy'st to steale my fire, deceiuing Me, 
Shalte feele that Ioy the greater griefe to thee; 
And therein plague thy vniuersall Race : 
To whom He giue a pleasing ill, in place 
Of that good fire : And all shall be so vaine 
To place their pleasure in embracing paine. 

Thus spake, and laught, of Gods and Men the Sire ; 
And straight enioyn'd the famous God of fire 
To mingle instantly, with Water, Earth ; 
The voyce, and vigor, of a humane Birth 
Imposing in it ; And so faire a face, 
As matcht th' Immortall Goddesses in grace : 
Her forme presenting a most louely Maid : 
Then on Minerua his Command he laid, 
To make her worke, and wield the wittie loome : 
And (for her Beauty) such as might become 



254 APPENDIX. 

The Golden Venus, He commanded Her 

Vpon her Browes and Countenance to conferre 

Her own Bewitchings : stuffing all her Breast 

With wilde Desires, incapable of Rest ; 

And Cares, 1 that feed to all satiety 

Ail human Lineaments. The Crafty spy, 

And Messenger of Godheads, Mercury 

He charg'd t' informe her with a dogged Minde, 

And theeuish Manners. All as he design'd 

Was put in act. A Creature straight had frame 

Like to a Virgine ; Milde and full of Shame : 

Which Ioue's Suggestion made the 2 both-foot lame 

Forme so deceitfully ; And all of Earth 

To forge the liuing Matter of her Birth. 

Gray-ey'd Minerua Put her Girdle on; 

And show'd how loose parts, wel-composed, shone. 

The deified Graces, And 3 the Dame that sets 

Sweet words in chiefe forme, Golden *Carquenets 

Embrac'd her Neck withall ; the faire-haird Howers 

Her gracious Temples crown'd, with fresh spring-flowers ; 

But all of these, imploy'd in seuerall place, 

Pallas gaue Order ; the impulsiue grace. 



1 Feed upon or emaciate the features by dissipated excess. 

2 Vulcan. 3 Persuasion. 

* Necklaces; from Carquan, Fr. or Carcan. Diet, de VAc. Fr. 

Threading a carkanet of pure round pearl. 

Sir W, Davenant. The Wits, a comedy. 



APPENDIX. 

Her bosome, Hermes, the great God of spies, 
With subtle fashions fill'd ; faire words and lies ; 
Ioue prompting still. But all the voyce she vs'd 
The vocall Herald of the Gods infus'd ; 
And calPd her name Pandora ; Since on Her 
The Gods did all their seuerall gifts confer : 
Who made her such, in euery moouing straine, 
To be the Bane of curious Minded Men. 



255 



II. 

When therefore first fit plow time doth disclose ; 
Put on with spirit; All, as one, dispose 
Thy Servants and thy selfe : plow wet and drie ; 
And when Aurora first affords her eye 
In Spring-time turn the earth vp; which see done 
Againe, past all faile, by the Summers Sunne. 
Hasten thy labours, that thy crowned fields 
May load themselues to thee, and l rack their yeelds. 
The Tilth-field sowe, on Earth's most light foundations 3 
The Tilth-field, banisher of execrations, 
Pleaser of Sonnes and Daughters : which t' improve 
With all wisht profits, pray to earthly Ioue, 
And vertuous Ceres ; that on all such suits 
Her sacred gift bestowes, in blessing fruits. 
When first thou enterst foot to plow thy land, 
And on thy plow-staife's top hast laid thy hand ; 

1 To rack here meaus to give what is exacted; yeelds iayieWi/ig*, jjroduce. 



256 APPENDIX. 

Thy Oxens backs that next thee by a Chaine 
Thy Oken draught-Tree drawe, put to the paine 
Thy Goad imposes. And thy Boy behinde, 
That with his Iron Rake thou hast design'd, 
To hide thy seed, Let from his labour drive 
The Birds, that offer on thy sweat to Hue. 
The best thing, that in humane Needs doth fall, 
Is Industry ; and Sloath the worst of all. 
With one thy Corne ears shall with fruit abound; 
And bow their thankfull forheads to the ground ; 
With th' other, scarce thy seed again redound. 

III. 
But if thou shouldst sow late, this well may be 
In all thy Slacknesse an excuse for thee : 
When, in the Oakes greene amis the Cuckoe sings, 
And first delights Men in the louely springs; 
If much raine fall, 'tis fit then to defer 
Thy sowing worke. But how much raine to beare, 
And » let no labour, to that Much give eare : 
Past intermission let Ioue steepe the grasse 
Three daies together, so he do not passe 
An Oxes hoofe in depth ; and neuer 2 stay 
To strowe thy seed in : (but if deeper way 
Ioue with his raine makes ; then forbeare the field ;) 
For late sowne then will 3 past the formost yield. 

1 Under. 2 Hesitate. 3 Beyond that which was sown first 



} 



I 



APPENDIX. 257 

Minde well all this, nor let it fly thy powrs 
To knowe what fits the white spring r s early flowrs ; 
Nor when raines timely fall : Nor when sharp colde, 
In winter r s wrath, doth men from worke withholde, 
Sit by Smiths forges, nor warme tauernes hant ; 
Nor let the bitterest of the season dant 
Thy thrift-arm'd »paines, 2 like idle Pouertie; 
For then the time is when th' industrious 3 Thie 
Vpholdes, with all increase, his Familie : 
With whose 4 rich hardness spirited, do thou 
'Poor Delicacie flie ; lest frost and snowe 
6 Fled for her loue, Hunger ^ sit both them out, 
And make thee, with the beggar's lazie gout 
Sit stooping to the paine, still pointing too't, 
And with a leane hand stroke a 8 foggie foot. 

IV. 

When aire's chill North his noisome frosts shall blowe 
All ouer earth, and all the wide sea throwe 
At Heauen in hills, from colde horse-breeding Thrace ; 
The beaten earth, and all her Syluane race 
Roring and bellowing with his bitter strokes ; 

1 Exertions. 2 go much as. 

3 The Man of Thrift. Thie in the old Saxon is thrift. 

4 Animated with whose hardihood in braving the season for the sake of wealth. 

5 Slothful averseness to meet the rigour of the season, of which the consequence 
is poverty. 

6 Avoided through love of delicacy; or slothful indulgence. 

7 Remain unemployed ; sit starving in idleness as long as the frost and snow 
«ndure. 8 Thick, swollen. 

S 



258 APPENDIX. 

* Plumps of thick firre-trees and high crested-Okes 

Tome up in vallies ; 2 all Aire 's floud let flie 

In him, at Earth; 3 sad nurse of all that die. 

Wilde beasts abhor him ; and run clapping close 

Their sterns betwixt their thighs ; and euen all those 

Whose hides their fleeces line with highest proofe ; 

Euen Oxe-hides also want expulsive stuffe, 

And bristled goates, against his bitter gale : 

He blowes so colde, he beates quite through them all. 

Onely with silly sheep it fares not so ; 

For they each summer 4 fleec't, their 5 fells so growe, 

6 They shield all winter crusht into his winde. 

He makes the olde Man trudge for life, to finde 

Shelter against him ; but he cannot blast 

The tender and the delicately grac't 

Flesh of the virgin ; she is kept within, 

Close by her mother, careful of her skin : 

7 Since yet she neuer knew how to enfolde 

The force of Venus 8 swimming all in golde. 

1 Clusters. 

2 The whole deluge of air being let loose in him, the (north-wind) on the surface 
of earth. 

3 In the original, many-nourishing. Chapman has elsewhere more faithfully 
the same epithet " many-a-creature-nourishing earth." 

4 Being sheared. 5 Skins. 

6 They keep out the whole force of the winter, which is concentrated in his (the 
winter's) wind. 

7 She was of too tender an age to sustain the bridal embrace. 

8 A Grecism : swimming in beauty : in the Greek, many-golden Venus : 
abounding with charms. 



APPENDIX. 259 

Whose Snowie bosome choicely washt and balm'd 

With wealthy oiles, she keepes the house becalm'd, 

All winter's spight ; when in his fire-lesse shed 

And miserable roofe still hiding head, 

The bonelesse fish doth eat his feet for colde: 

To whom the Sunne doth neuer food vnfolde; 

But turnes aboue the blacke Mens populous towrs, 

On whom he more bestowes his radiant howres 

That on th' Hellenians : then all Beasts of home, 

And smooth-brow 'd, that in beds of wood are borne, 

About the Oken dales that North-winde flie, 

Gnashing their teeth with restlesse miserie ; 

And euerywhere that ' Care solicits all, 

That ( 2 out of shelter) to their Couerts fall, 

And Cauerns eaten into Rocks ; and then 

Those wilde Beasts shrink, like tame three-footed Men, 

Whose backs are broke with age, and forheads driu'n 

To stoope to Earth, though borne to looke on Heav'n. 

Euen like to these, Those tough-bred rude ones goe, 

Flying the white drifts of the Northerne Snowe. 

V. 

But then betake thee to the shade that lies 
In shield of Rocks ; drinke Biblian wine, and eate 
The creamy wafer : Gotes milke, that the Teate 
Giues newly free, and nurses Kids no more : 

« The care of seeking shelter. a Being In need of shelter, 

s 2 



260 APPENDIX. 

Flesh of Bow-broilsirig Beeues, that neuer bore, 

And tender kids. And to these, taste black wine, 

The third part water, of the Crystaline 

Still flowing fount, that feeds a streame beneath ; 

And sit in shades, where temperate gales may breath 

On thy oppos'd cheeks. When Orion's raies 

His influence, in first ascent, assaies, 

Then to thy labouring Seruants giue command, 

1 To dight the sacred gift of Ceres hand, 

In some place windie, on a 2 well-planed floore ; 

Which, all by measure, into Vessels poure ; 

Make then thy Man-swaine, one that hath no house ; 

Thy handmaid one, that hath nor child nor spouse ; 

Handmaids, that children have, are rauenous. 

A Mastiffe likewise, nourish still at home ; 

Whose teeth are sharp, and close as any Combe ; 

And meat him well, to keep with stronger guard 

The Day-sleep-wake-Night Man from forth thy yard : 

That else thy Goods into his Caues will beare : 

slnne Hay and Chaffe enough for all the yeare, 

To serve thy Oxen and thy Mules ; and then 

Loose them : and ease 4 the dear knees of thy Men. 



1 To dress, or prepare by thrashing. * Well-smooth'd or leveled. 

3 Stow in. 

*A Grecism: Dear in Greek being synonymous with his, herg, their: and in 
this instance an expletisre.. 



1 



APPENDIX. 261 



VI. 

If of a Chance-complaining Man at seas 
The humor take thee ; when the Pleiades 
Hide head, and flie the fierce Orion's chace, 
And the darke-deep Oceanus embrace; 
Then diuerse Gusts of violent winds arise ; 
And then attempt no Nauall enterprize. 
But ply thy Land affaires, and draw ashore 
Thy Ship ; and fence her round with stonage store 
To shield her Ribs against the ' humorous Gales ; 
Her Pump exhausted, lest Ioue's rainie falls 
Breed putrefaction. All tooles fit for her, 
And all her tacklings, to thy House confer : 
Contracting orderly all needfull things 
That imp a water-treading Vessel's wings ; 
Her well-wrought Sterne hang in the smoke at home, 
Attending time, till fit Sea Seasons come. — 

When thy vaine Minde then would Sea-ventures try, 
1 In loue the Land-Rocks of loath'd Debt to fly, 
And Hunger's euer-harsh-to-hear-of cry : 
He set before thee all the Trim and Dresse 
Of those still-roaring-noise-resounding Seas : 
Though neither skild in either Ship or Saile 
Nor euer was at Sea ; Or, lest I faile, 



} 



i Humid. 2 With the wish or desire. 



p 









always adapted even to epic poetry, its armour is rather too heavy 
and cumbrous : it has a woeful tendency to lag behind, and neither 
follows the conceptions or expressions of Homer, through all his 
sudden ebullitions of sentiment, and daring flights of poesy. — It is 
still less suited to the Doric simplicity and flowing measure of Theo- 
critus, and is very unhappily used by our author in his version of 
that poet's " Infant Hercules." 

" All that could have been done by Bion's most ardent admirer 
has been done by Mr. Elton in the Elegy on Adonis, which we 
have read with the greatest pleasure. Every turn of fancy, and 
every sentiment of the wildest tenderness, is happily preserved and 
beautifully expressed." 

" His Moschus' Epitaph on Bion is equally feeling and tender." 

" The Dream of Tibullus is one of Mr. E's best specimens, and 
we recommend it as a very beautiful and feeling production, and 
the least cramped by the irons of a too galling fidelity among the 
works before us." 

" Propertius excells in his various love-songs to Cynthia; our 
English Propertius is not without much of the original spirit. We 
could have wished that Mr. Elton had given us a specimen of that 
beautiful and singular elegy, addressed by Cornelia to Paulus, soon 
after her sudden death." 

" Lucan, whom our author so much admires, is translated with 
much care and spirit. There is every symptom of corresponding 
sensations. The calm sublimity of blank verse is well adapted to 
this poet. The moral conceptions, and the chastised but powerful 
eloquence of this last and truly Roman epic poem, are described 
with much effect. Were not our antipathy great to any translations 
whatsoever, we should say that Mr, Elton is the very person qua- 
lified to translate the whole of Lucan. He has imbibed the same 
spirit of philosophical and dignified argument, with a glow of de- 
scription and indignant feeling which would carry him successfully 
to the end of his labors." 



Messrs, Longman and Co. are about to Publish, 

COMPOSITIONS IN OUTLINE, 

FROM 

THE WORKS OF HESIOD, 



JOHN FLAXMAN, R. A. 

PROFESSOR OF SCULPTURE TO THE ROYAL ACADEMY, 

Engraved by J. Blake, in folio, to correspond with the 
Outlines from Homer. 



ubrar 







■ 



w 

^^b 



■ 
SRHI 



H 






■ 



